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With Shelley in Italy 

Being a Selection of the Poems and Letters of 
Percy Bysshe Shelley 

Which have to do with his Life in Italy from 
1818 to 1822 



Selected and Arranged by 

Anna Benneson McMahan 

Editor of " Florence in the Poetry of the Brownings," etc. 

With over Siocty Full-page Illustrations 
from Photographs 




Chicago 
A. C. McClurg h Co. 
1905 






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.V\^- 



Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1905 

All rights reserved 

Published October 14, 1905 



About one-half of the illustrationa of this Yolume are from the photo- 
graphs of Alinari Brothers, Florence. Of the others, some are from the 
local photographers at Spezia, Viareggio, and Pisa, some from old engravings 
made in the early part of the nineteenth century, and the remainder from 
photographs made expressly for this work by Miss Una McMahaii. 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CASIBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



TO 

UNA AND FLORENCE 

IN MEMORY OF 
OUR SHELLEY PILGRIMAGES 



Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy! 

Julian and Maddalo 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Page 

Geneeal Introduction xv 

THE YEAR 1818 

Introduction to the Year 1818 3 

Passage of the Apennines 5 

Letter from Milan 6 

^/•Letter from Leghorn 9 

Letter from Bagni di Lucca 9 

Extracts from "Rosalind and Helen" 10 

Letter from Florence 13 

To Mary Shelley 14 

Lines Written among the Euganean Hills 16 

Marenghi 29 

Julian and Maddalo 36 

Letter from Yenice 59 

Letter from Este 62 

Letter from Bologna 64 

Letter from Rome 67 

Letter from Naples 70 

Stanzas "Written in Dejection, near Naples 73 

Letter from Naples 75 

Letter from Naples 80 

[vii] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

THE YEAR 1819 

Page 

Introduction to the Year 1819 87 

Eragment : To Italy 90 

Fragment : A Roman's Chamber 90 

Fragment : Rome and Nature 91 

Letter from Rome 91 

Extracts from " Prometheus Unbound " 103 

' Letter from Rome 125 

Letter from Leghorn 126 

Extracts from " The Cenci " 127 

The Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci 143 

Love's Philosophy 145 

Ode to the West Wind 146 

The Indian Serenade 149 

THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Introduction to the Years 1820 and IS 21 153 

Letter from Leghorn 156 

Letter to Maria Gisborne 157 

The Cloud 169 

To a Skylark .' ... 172 

Ode to Liberty 176 

Letter from Naples 187 

Ode to Naples 195 

Autumn : A Dirge 202 

The Tower of Famine 203 

Epipsychidion 204 

To 226 

To 227 

Adonais 227 

[viii] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

1*AGE 

Letter from Florence 243 

Letter from Ravenna 244 

Letter from Ravenna 247 

Letter from Pisa 248 

The Boat on tlie Serchio 249 

Evening : Ponte al Mare. Pisa 254 

Chorus to Hellas 255 

THE YEAR 1822 

NTRODUCTION TO THE YeAR 1822 259 

To Jane : The Invitation 264 

To Jane : The Recollection 267 

With a Guitar : to Jane 270 

To Jane: The Keen Stars were Twinkling 274 

A Dirge 275 

Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici 275 

The Isle 277 

Letter from Lerici 278 

Letter from Lerici 279 

Critical Notices of the Sculpture in the Florence 

Gallery 280 

On the Niobe 280 

The Minerva 282 

On the Yenus called Anadyomene 285 

Michael Angelo's Bacchus 286 

NDEX 289 



[ix] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

THE YEAR 1819 

Page 

Intkoduction to the Year 1819 87 

Fragment : To Italy 90 

Fragment : A Roman's Chamber 90 

Fragment : Rome and Nature 91 

Letter from Rome 91 

Extracts from " Prometheus Unbound " 103 

' Letter from Rome 125 

Letter from Leghorn 126 

Extracts from " The Cenci " 127 

The Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci 143 

Love's Philosophy 145 

Ode to the West Wind 146 

The Indian Serenade 149 

THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Introdtjction to the Years 1820 and 1821 153 

Letter from Leghorn 156 

Letter to Maria Gisborne 157 

The Cloud 169 

To a Skylark : ... 172 

Ode to Liberty 176 

Letter from Naples 187 

Ode to Naples 195 

Autumn : A Dirge 202 

The Tower of Famine 203 

Epipsychidion 204 

To 226 

To 227 

Adonais 227 

[viii] 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Page 

Letter from Florence 243 

Letter from Ravenna 244 

Letter from Raveinia 247 

Letter from Pisa 248 

The Boat on tlie Serchio 249 

Evening : Ponte al Mare. Pisa 254 

Chorus to Hellas 255 

THE YEAR 1822 

Introduction to the Year 1822 259 

To Jane : The Invitation 264 

To Jane : The Recollection 267 

With a Guitar : to Jane 270 

To Jane : The Keen Stars were Twinkling 274 

A Dirge 275 

Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici 275 

The Isle 277 

Letter from Lerici 278 

Letter from Lerici 279 

Critical Notices of the Sculpture in the Plorence 

Gallery 280 

On the Niobe 280 

The Minerva . . , 2S2 

On the Venus called Anadyomene 285 

Michael Angelo's Bacchus 286 

[ndex . 289 



[ix] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Casa Magui, Shelley's home on the Bay of Lerici, in 1822 Frontispiece 

Among the Apennines of Tuscany . . ~ 2 

Lake of Como 4 

Cathedral at Milan 6 

Cathedral at Milan 8 • 

Interior 
Yalley of the Lima, at Bagni di Lucca, near home of Shelley 

in Summer of 1818 10 

Scene in Tuscany 14 

Petrarch's House at Arqua 16 

View of Venice from the Lagoon 20 ' 

Padua and Piazza Vittorio Emanuele 24 

Landscape among the Euganean Hills 28 

Florence 32^ 

The Lido at Venice 36- 

Among the Euganean Hills 40 * 

The Doge's Palace at Venice 46 ' 

Leaniug Towers of Bologna 52 

Bridge and Aqueduct at Spoleto 58 

St. Cecilia by Raphael 62 

The Virgin appearing to Saint Bruno. By Guercino ... 66 
In Bologna Gallery 

Waterfall at Terni ^8 ^ 

The Coliseum in Shelley's time 70 

[xi] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 

Temple of Neptune at Paestum 74 

So-called Basilica at Paestum 78 

The Baths of Caracalla in Shelley's time 80 ' 

City and Bay of Salerno 82 ' 

The Roman Campagna 86 

Arch of Constantine at Rome 90 

A Comer of the Porum in Shelley's time 92 

Interior of Pantlieon 96 

Bas-Reliefs on Arch of Titus 98 

The Coliseum seen through the Arch of Titus 102 

Portrait of Beatrice Cenci 126 

In the Barberini Gallery, Rome 

Cenci Palace at Rome 132 

Castle St. Angelo 138 

Head of Medusa, commonly attributed to Leonardo da Vinci 142 

In Uffizi Gallery 

Woods of the Cascine and the River Amo, near Plorence . 146 

Pineta between Pisa and the Sea 152 

Fortress at Staggia 180 

Street in Pompeii 186 

Amphitheatre at Pompeii, with Vesuvius in the background . 192 

View of Baise and Mare Morto, taken from Cape Misenum . 196 

Porum of Pompeii, with Vesuvius in the distance .... 200 

Street of Tombs at Pompeii 204 

Grave of John Keats in Protestant Cemetery at Rome . . 206 

Monument to John Keats 210 

Shelley's Grave in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome . . . 214 

Niobe 218 

In Uffizi Gallery 

Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna 222 

Tomb of Theodoric the Great at Ravenna 226 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Pam 

Church of Sant' ApoUinare at Ravenna 230 

Behind Shelley's house in Pisa 234 

The Arao at Pisa 238 

Shelley's house in the foreground at left 

Protestant Cemetery and Pyramid of Cestius at Rome . . . 242 

Bay of Lerici, with town and castle of Lerici 246 

Hills and woods of San Terenzo on Bay of Lerici .... 248 

San Terenzo and the Bay of Lerici 250 

Shelley's house in foreground at the right. Photograph made 
about 1880, previous to building of modern road 

Porto Yenere on Gulf of Spezia, opposite Bay of Lerici . . 254 

Yiew on the River Serchio 258 

Shelley's home on the Bay of Lerici 262 

Photograph of 1904 

The shore at Yiareggio where Shelley's funeral pyre was made 

August 16, 1822 . . , . 26Q 

Monument to Shelley at Yiareggio 270 

In Piazza Shelley, formerly Piazza Paolina 

Minerva 274 

In Uffizi Gallery 

Yenus Anadyoraene 278 

In Uffizi Gallery 

Michael Angelo's Bacchus 282 

In National Museum 



[xiii] 



Introduction 



UNDER whatever circumstances and in whatever 
land Percy Bysshe Shelley's days might have been 
passed,, his innate poetic temperament would have 
been sure to express itself; but it is the Italian note in 
Shelley^s poetry that makes him the particular kind of great 
poet that he is. Self-exiled from England at the age of 
twenty-six, he never returned to that country, but spent the 
remainder of his life, four years, in Italy ; here his genius 
developed toward maturity, here his muse found a con- 
genial home and utterance. Sky, storm, tree, mountain, 
and sea, the whole spirit of Italian landscape lives in 
Shelley^s verse — '^I depend on these things for life, for 
in the smoke of cities and the tumult of human kind and 
the chilling fogs of our own country I can scarcely be said 
to live.^' He seldom composed within four walls, but 
found his inspiration on some solitary hillside, within some 
garden pergola, on a- house-top terrace, or in a boat upon 
the waves. The Shelley lover is constrained to follow in 
his footsteps; he longs to stroll through the lanes about 
Leghorn where Shelley heard the skylark sing ; to plunge 
into the Pisan Pineta whose very atmosphere breathes in 
"A Recollection ^■'; to wander among the ruins of the Baths 
of Caracalla and to conjure there the elfin figure perched 

[XV] 



INTRODUCTION 

oil high while creating a new Prometheus ; to explore that 
^^ divine bay '^ of Lerici where the brilliant dreams and 
poetic visions of a new and regenerated humanity were so 
soon to come to a fatal close. A strange, wandering life it 
was that he led those four years, " yoked to all sorts of 
miseries and discomforts/' especially during its early period. 
Yet never did these stifle the high thoughts and continual 
literary production. ^^ A Passage of the Apennines/'' his 
first Italian poem, was written at a little inn among the 
mountains, in the midst of a wild landscape not far from 
Bologna where he passed but a single night ; the " Lines 
Written among the Euganean Hills '^ are full of local color. 
From the summer-house where he loved to write, in the 
garden of their own villa near Este he could himself see, 

Spread like a green sea 
The waveless plain of Lombardy; 
Bounded by the vaporous air. 
Islanded by cities fair. 

At this time also he was meditating on different subjects 
as a groundwork of a lyrical drama, " having taken the 
resolution to see what kind of tragedy a person without 
dramatic talent could write." ^' The Madness of Tasso ^' 
was undertaken, but only one short scene and an unfinished 
song are extant ; the " Prometheus Unbound '^ was begun 
and the first act nearly completed in the same congenial 
atmosphere. 

This radiant time of Summer and sunshine seems to 
have been followed by days of deep depression. The "Lines 
Written in Dejection near Naples''"' express his habitual 
mood during his stay in that city the following Winter. 

[xvi] 



INTRODUCTION 

However,, red-letter days were not lacking ; the impressions 
made by Baise, Vesuvius, and Pompeii are recorded not 
only in charming letters but in the magnificent " Ode to 
Naples/^ written two years later. Has Pompeii^s peculiar 
power over the imagination ever been more exactly as well 
as poetically expressed than in these lines ? — 

I stood witbiii the city disinterred, 
And heard the autumnal leaves like Hght footfalls 
Of spirits passing through the streets ; and heard 
The mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
Thrill through those roofless halls. 

Or has the spirit of the Bay of Naples been seized more 
happily than in the lines ? — 

Where the Baian ocean 
Welters with air-Hke motion, 
Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, 
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves. 

The most important year in Shelley^s life, however, was 
his second year in Italy. Then, in the midst of an always 
changing, usually ailing, often sorrowful and distracted 
existence, he produced those two masterpieces, — so great 
yet so different, — ^' Prometheus Unbound ''■' and " The 
Cenci " ; several political and satirical poems, including 
"The Masque of Anarchy'' and "Peter Bell the Third"; 
a long list of lyrics, including the matchless " Ode to the 
"West Wind/' the " Ode to Heaven,'" and the impassioned 
"Indian Serenade.'' In some cases we know the exact 
circumstances and hour that kindled the poetic fire. " The 
bright blue sky of Eome and the effect of the vigorous 1 
awakening of Spring in that divinest climate, and the new 

[xvii] 



INTRODUCTION 

life with which it drenches the spirit even to intoxication 
were the inspiration of this drama," he tells us in the preface 
of "Prometheus Unbound"; during a walk in the Cascine 
near Florence he conceived and wrote that " Ode to the 
West Wind/' which, as a lyric, has not been excelled in 
English poetry. The galleries of Florence filled him with 
delight, and one picture at least — '^ The Medusa " — in- 
spired a poem. Sculpture he enjoyed especially, and would 
sit for hours before the "Niobe" or some favorite Apollo. 
" What would we think," he wrote, " if we were forbidden 
to read the great writers who have left us their works ? 
And yet, to be forbidden to live at Florence or Eome is an 
evil of the same kind and hardly of less magnitude." 

But it was neither air, nor scenery, nor works of art 
that led to Shelley's most intense, though not his longest- 
lived, poetic fervor; it was his introduction to a beautiful 
and accomplished Italian girl, Emilia Yiviani, imprisoned 
by a father and a jealous stepmother in the miserable 
Convent of St. Anna, near Pisa, until such time as a hus- 
band could be found who would take her without a dowry. 
She had already been a prisoner for two years when the 
Shelleys were taken by a friend to see her. Shelley was a 
born knight-errant ; he could never see or hear of a wrong 
without an instant rush to right it, regardless of conse- 
quence. And what more compelling circumstances than 
these — the persecution of a being so innocent, so beauti- 
ful, so spiritual, so exalted ? Plans, correspondence, visits, 
presents, greetings of one kind or another crowded every 
hour of the day ; but the practical difficulties of releasing 
the imprisoned maiden proved so great that in the end 
[xviii] 



INTRODUCTION 

Emilia had to beg the Shelleys to come to her no more, as 
her condition was only made more unbearable thereby. 
But nothing could silence or abate the idealizing power of 
Shelley's imagination, and Emilia Viviani now stood in his 
mind as an image of all that was lovely in womankind. He 
had always been fully in sympathy with Plato's doctrine of 
man as a divided human being whom Love impels to seek 
his severed half of self throughout his mortal life. He had 
translated Plato's "Symposium" and followed it by be- 
ginning in prose "A Discourse on the Manners of the 
Ancients Eelating to the Subject of Love." This was 
never finished, perhaps because he did not find it easy to 
handle so delicate a matter in prose. The poem " To His 
Genius " is also a partial explanation of the long poem now 
addressed to Emilia called " Epipsychidion " — a word 
coined by Shelley from the Greek, which Stopford Brooke 
suggests is to be translated by the line^ " Whither 't was 
fled this soul out of my soul" 

But no amount of explanation or comment could re- 
veal the inner spirit of the poem to the world at large, nor 
did Shelley expect that it would. He sent it to the pub- 
lisher, ordering only one hundred copies to be printed, 
saying it was only for the esoteric few, that indeed in a 
certain sense it was a "production of a portion of me 
already dead " and " it would give me no pleasure that the 
vulgar should read it." 

Time, which rights so many things, has now set " Epip- 
sychidion" in its right place — alone in English poetry, 
but alongside of Dante's " Vita Nuova," as a poem touch- 
ing with supreme art on the ideal forms of a passionate 

[xix] 



INTRODUCTION 

love. Emilia, like Beatrice, is less a mortal woman than a 
figure standing as a representative of the poet's vision of 
her who is his second soul, the earthly embodiment of all 
his ideals of Love and Beauty and Knowledge and Truth. 
No other English poet could have written it, and perhaps 
none will ever attempt another like it. As an idealized 
history of Shelley^s inner life it is priceless. The motive 
of '' Epipsychidion,"*' and even its first draft, existed before 
the meeting of Shelley and Emilia ; that meeting simply 
furnished the final impulse to complete the poem. It is 
well that circumstances finally combined to give to us this 
late and full expression of an underlying principle, held 
throughout Shelley's life, which, however, both then and 
for many years after his death, subjected him to much mis- 
understanding by the world at large. 

As to conduct and character, certainly the same stand- 
ards of morality should prevail for all members of society ; 
the poet must be counted amenable to the same laws as the 
hod-carrier. But also let it be granted that as to thought 
and feeling great differences exist between these types of 
men; spheres shut out from the hod-carrier are open to 
the poet. It is this that makes him a poet; and even he 
cannot live for any long period in the rarefied air of a 
visionary world where the very act of expression serves to 
exorcise and banish the image. This Shelley himself 
acknowledges in the closing lines : 

Woe is me ! 
The winged words on which my soul would pierce 
Into the heights of love's rare universe 
Are chains of lead around its flight of fire. 
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 
[XX] 



INTRODUCTION 

The Bay of Lerici, which gives its name to one poem 
and was the inspiration of several others, was Shelley^s last 
home. 

" The blue extent of the waters, the almost land-locked bay, the 
near castle of Lerici shutting it in to the east and distant Porto 
Venere to the west ; the varied forms of the precipitous rocks that 
bound in the beach; ... the tideless sea leaving no sands nor 
shingle, ... a picture such as one sees in Salvator Rosa's landscapes 
only " — 

are portions of Mary Shelley^s descriptions of the place, as 
true to-day as when they were written. Here were passed 
Shelley's happiest days ; here, almost for the first time, he 
had something like health and serenity of spirits. The 
poem now begun — " The Triumph of Life " — is the ex- 
pression of the attitude of mind which he had now attained 
— of peace achieved through passion, of insight gained 
through suffering and through error. Its opening lines, 
with its magnificent picture of sunrise and himself in wak- 
ing vision 

Beneath the hoary stem 
Which an old chestnut flung athwart the steep 
Of a green Apennine, 

embalm the very spirit of the Italy which was so dear to 
Shelley^s heart and so mighty a power in his life. Frag- 
ment as it is, it is yet a poem full of ethical and spiritual 
import. It breaks off suddenly with the line, 

" ' Then, what is Life ? ' I cried." 

But this question was to have no answer from Shelley. A 
sudden storm at sea capsized the boat in which he and his 
friend were sailing, and both were drowned almost within 

[xxi] 



INTRODUCTION 

sight of their own home. Many days later both bodies 
were washed ashore near Yiareggio. They were buried in 
sand on the beach. The harrowing details of the identifi- 
cation of the two bodies, their removal from the temporary 
graves and their burning on the shore a month later^ the 
suspense suffered by the two widowed women in the lonely 
Casa Magni during the days when they hoped against hope 
and drove frantically from place to place along the shore 
hoping for tidings of the missing boat — are the distressing 
but well-known chapters that close the record of the Shelley 
household in Italy. Yiareggio keeps his memory green by 
a monument erected in 1894 in its principal square, the 
work of an Italian sculptor. Here, each year, celebrations 
are held and laurel wreaths are placed, with speeches and 
poems by Italy's most illustrious speakers and writers. 

The " lyrical cry '^ in Shelley's verse appeals particularly 
to the Italian nature; his prophecies of a Golden Age are 
eagerly read, and the country which received England's 
exiled poet will always claim him as in part her very 
own. 

Not alone in his poems is Italy celebrated by Shelley ; 
his letters are full of descriptions of places and people and 
things which one would not willingly miss to-day, which 
are, indeed, all the more valuable to-day because of the 
changes wrought in the passage of nearly one hundred 
years. Shelley's judgment in some matters was partial, 
in some entirely wrong; his weakness as an art critic is 
apparent at times even to the amateur. But all such allow- 
ances being made, it cannot be otherwise than inspiring to 
walk hand in hand with Shelley, seeing Italy with his eyes, 
[xxii] 



INTRODUCTION 

and hearing the message it spoke to his sympathetic heart 
and poetic spirit. 

A quarter of a century ago one of Shelley^s most sympa- 
thetic editors^ declared the only serious obstacles to the 
general comprehension of Shelley to be " his erudition and 
the Italian atmosphere which envelops much of his poetry/^ 
Since that time much textual criticism, many biographies, 
and no end of annotated editions have been offered in eluci- 
dation of obscurities or learned allusions. But no attempt 
has been made to set the poems in their original environ- 
ment, or to conduct the reader himself into that very Italian 
atmosphere where they were born. To do this as far as 
may be possible^ through illustration and the grouping of 
letters and passages from note-books with the poems, so 
that the poems may be seen in the making, so to speak, is 
the object of the present volume. 

A. B. McM. 
Spezia, Italy, 1905. 

^Ricliard Garnett. 



[xxiii] 



THE YEAR 1818 



A MONG the Apennines 
^^of Tuscany. 




" The J Pennine in the light of day 
Is a mighty mountain dim and grey.'"'' 

— Passage of The Apennines, 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

THE YEAR 1818 

BAGNI m LUCCA; ESTE ; NAPLES 

INTRODUCTORY 

~jr\ROKEN in health and spirits and warned by his 
Aj physician against the excitement of literary com- 
position, without a settled abode, and travelling 
from place to place eiicumbered with a helpless party of 
women, children, and servants, and, moreover, engaged in 
that most depressing of all occupations, house -huntiiig, 
we should hardly look for numerous or impoHant poetical 
creations as the immediate result of SJielley's arrival in 
Italy. Arid though in t7'uth the list is not long, it shoivs 
at once the impress of the new scenes and experiences, the 
strong impulse given by the ideality of Italy. Both 
Shelley and his wife, Mary Shelley, wer-e enthusiastic 
travellers, and the hardships were quite obscured by the 
delights of this first summer in Tuscany. Travelling by 
carriage over winding roads among the Apermines, climb- 
ing on foot or on horseback their ivooded peaks, exploring 
in small boats many a river and stream, — these things 
were sure to appeal to a poet whose chief delight always 
had been the contemplation of nature. To him. Nature 

[3] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

was no dead thing, hut a living spirit ; to Mm, every 
natural phenomefion ivas some form of the utterance of 
this spirit. Such a poem as " The Cloud '' shows the 
Shelley attitude toward nature, and is perhaps its most 
exquisitely wrought out example. Bid all of these early 
Italian poems breathe more or less of the same spirit ; they 
are mostly poems of pure nature. The only one in 
which human life plays any important part is " Julian 
and Maddalo^'' written late in the year and as the result 
of a visit to Lord Byron in Venice. 

" Rosalind and Helen,^'' thrown aside m England hut 
hr ought along in an unfinished state, was found hy Mrs. 
Shelley among the papers, and at her urgency finished. 
Shelley himself said of it, " / lay no stj'ess on it one 
way or the other. ''^ Considered as a whole, the world 
perhaps shares Shelley'' s opinion, hid there are some pas- 
sages which must he rescued from this general indiffer- 
ence for their charming pictures of the Italian la7idscape. 
The scene is laid on the shores of Lake Como, in whose 
" divine solitude " Shelley had vainly tried to find a 
home; and its pictures of the ''forests solitude^'' the 
" chestnut woods,'''' and " lawny dells^'' hear plainly the 
impress of Bagni di Lucca, where the discarded poem 
was taken up and finished. 

Este, their second home, has its poet laureate in the 
" Lines Written among the Euganean Hills,^'' while the 
letters of this time, glowing with the freshness of first 
impressions, are scarcely less poetical than the verses. 
Often, indeed, the letters furnish the precise setting and 
conditions which led to the poetical inspiration, and are 

[4] 



THE YEAR 1818 

glimpses into the poefs imier mind, rough draughts of the 
poem, as it were. They confirm what, indeed, we should 
divine without them, that the poems of this year were 
written for their own sake and to express Shelley'' s pure 
joy in that living spirit ivhich he conceived Nature to he. 
In a time like our own, ivhen the interest in scientific 
theories concerning the processes of nature is so absorb- 
ing, all the more welcome is a voice like Shelley^s to 
speak of the spiritual side, the side seen by the artist and 
lover of Nature for her own sake. 



PASSAGE OF THE APENNINES 

Listen, listen,, Mary mine. 
To the whisper of the Apeimine, 
It bursts on the roof like the thunder's roar, 
Or like the sea on a northern shore. 
Heard in its raging ebb and flow- 
By the captives pent in the cave below. 
The Apennine in the light of day 
Is a mighty mountain dim and grey, 
Which between the earth and sky doth lay ; 
But when night comes, a chaos dread 
On the dim starlight then is spread, 
And the Apennine walks abroad with the storm. 
May 4, I8I8.1 

1 Note that this, Shelley's first poem in Italy, was inspired by his delight 
in storm and tempest. For other instances, see " Revolt of Islam," Books 
I and XI, the poetical " Letter to Maria Gisborne," the " Vision of the 
Sea," the opening lines of " Ode to the West Wind." — Ed. 

[5] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Milan, April, 1818. 
My dear Peacock^: . . . We have been to Como, 
looking for a house. This lake exceeds any thing I ever 
beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands 
of Killarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appear- 
ance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and 
the forests. We sailed from the town of Corao to a tract of 
country called the Tremezina, and saw the various aspects 
presented by that part of the lake. The mountains be- 
tween Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, 
are covered on high with chestnut forests (the eating chest- 
nuts, on which the inhabitants of the country subsist in 
time of scarcity), which sometimes descend to the very 
verge of the lake, overhanging it with their hoary branches. 
But usually the immediate border of this shore is com- 
posed of laurel-trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild-fig 
trees, and olives, which grow in the crevices of the rocks, 
and overhang the caverns, and shadow the deep glens, 
which are filled with the flashing light of the waterfalls. 
Other flowering shrubs, whicli I cannot name, grow there 
also. On high, the towers of village churches are seen 
white among the dark forests. Beyond, on the opposite 
shore, which faces the south, the mountains descend less 
precipitously to the lake, and although they are much higher, 
and some covered with perpetual snow, there intervenes 
between them and the lake a range of lower hills, whicli 

^ Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866), novelist and poet of some dis- 
tinction in his time. He was the warm friend of Shelley and his constant 
correspondent after his departure from England. Unless otherwise stated, 
aU the letters in this collection were addressed to Mr. Peacock in London. 

[6] 




Q 



THE YEAR 1818 

have glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should 
fancy the abi/sses of Ida or Parnassus. Here are planta- 
tions of olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are now 
so loaded with fruit, that there is more fruit than leaves, 
— and vineyards. This shore of the lake is one continued 
village, and the Milanese nobility have their villas here. 
The union of culture and the untameable profusion and 
loveliness of nature is here so close, that the line where 
they are divided can hardly be discovered. But the finest 
scenery is that of the Yilla Pliniana ; so called from a 
fountain which ebbs and flows every three hours, described 
by the younger Pliny, which is in the court-yard. This 
house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now 
half in ruins, we are endeavouring to procure. It is built 
upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together 
with its garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, 
overshadowed by profound forests of chestnut. The scene 
from the colonnade is the most extraordinary, at once, and 
the most lovely that eye ever beheld. On one side is the 
mountain, and immediately over you are clusters of cypress- 
trees of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce the 
sky. Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, de- 
scends a waterfall of immense size, broken by the woody 
rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. On the other 
side is seen the blue extent of the lake and the mountains, 
speckled with sails and spires. The apartments of the 
Pliniana are immensely large, but ill furnished and antique. 
The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under 
the shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the 
epithet of Pythian, are most delightful. We stayed at 

[7] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Como two days, and have now returned to Milan, waiting 
the issue of our negotiation about a house. Como is only 
six leagues from Milan, and its mountains are seen from 
the cathedral. 

This cathedral [Milan] is a most astonishing work of 
art. It is built of white marble, and cut into pinnacles of 
immense height, and the utmost delicacy of workmanship, 
and loaded with sculpture. The effect of it, piercing the 
solid blue with those groups of dazzling spires, relieved by 
the serene depth of this Italian heaven, or by moonlight 
when the stars seem gathered among those clustered shapes, 
is beyond anything I had imagined architecture capable of 
producing. The interior, though very sublime, is of a 
more earthly character, and with its stained glass and 
massy granite columns overloaded with antique figures, and 
the silver lamps, that burn for ever under the canopy of 
black cloth beside the brazen altar and the marble fretwork 
of the dome, give it the aspect of some gorgeous sepulchre. 
There is one solitary spot among those aisles, behind the 
altar, where the light of day is dim and yellow under the 
storied window, which I have chosen to visit, and read 
Dante there. 

I have devoted this summer, and indeed the next year, 
to the composition of a tragedy on the subject of Tasso^s 
madness, which I find upon inspection is, if properly 
treated, admirably dramatic and poetical. But you will 
say I have no dramatic talent. Very true in a cer- 
tain sense; but I have taken the resolution to see what 
kind of tragedy a person without dramatic talent could 
write. 

[8] 



c 



\THEDRAL at Milan, 
[nterior. 




" There is one solitary spot amomf those aisles^ behind the altar ^ 
where the light of day is dim and yellow under the storied window 
which I have chosen to visit, and read iJante there. " 

— Letter from Milan, p. 8. 



THE YEAR 1818 

Leghorn, June 5, 1818. 

We left Milan on the first of May, and travelled across 
the Apennines to Pisa. This part of the Apennine is far less 
beautiful than the Alps ; the mountains are wide and wild_, 
and the whole scenery broad and undetermined — the im- 
agination cannot find a home in it. The plain of the 
Milanese, and that of Parma, is exquisitely beautiful — it 
is like one garden, or rather cultivated wilderness ; because 
the corn and the meadow-grass grow under high and thick 
trees, festooned to one another by regular festoons of vines. 
On the seventh day we arrived at Pisa, where we remained 
three or four days. A large disagreeable city, almost with- 
out inhabitants. We then proceeded to this great trading 
town, where we have remained a month, and which, in a 
few days, we leave for the Bagni di Lucca, a kind of 
watering-place situated in the depth of the Apennines ; the 
scenery surrounding this village is very fine. 

TO ME. AND MRS. GISBORKE 
(Leghorn) 

Bagni di Lucca, July 10, 1818. 

We have ridden, Mary and I, once only, to a place 
called Prato Piorito,^ on the top of the mountains : the 

1 Prato Fiorito (Flowering Meadow) is still a favorite excursion from 
Bagni di Lucca. On the occasion of Shelley's visit the jonquils were 
blooming in such abundance that their odor almost caused him to faint. 
la " Epipsychidion " occurs a reminiscence of this experience : — 
"And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 
And dart their arrowy odour through the brain 
Till you might faint -with that delicious pain. " 

[9] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

road, winding through forests, and over torrents, and on 
the verge of green ravines, affords scenery magnificently 
fine. I cannot describe it to you, but bid you, tnough 
vainly, come and see. I take great delight in watching 
the changes of the atmosphere here, and the growth of 
the thunder showers with which the noon is often over- 
shadowed, and which break and fade away towards even- 
ing into flocks of delicate clouds. Our fire-flies are fading 
away fast; but there is the planet Jupiter, who rises majes- 
tically over the rift in the forest-covered mountains to the 
south, and the pale Summer lightning which is spread out 
every night, at intervals, over the sky. No doubt Provi- 
dence has contrived these things, that, when the fire-flies 
go out, the low-flying owl may see her way home. 

FEOM '^EOSALIND AND HELEN '^ 

Scene, the Shore of the Lake of Como 

HELEN 

Come hither, my sweet Eosalind. 
^T is long since thou and I have met ; 
And yet methinks it were unkind 
Those moments to forget. 
Come sit by me. I see thee stand 
By tliis lone lake, in this far land, 
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying, 
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even 
United, and thine eyes replying 
To the hues of yon fair heaven. 
Come, gentle friend : wilt sit by me ? 
[10] 






=. «1 
■^ £t o 
22 t^ ^ 

1 2 f 

-^ -! t- 




THE YEAR 1818 

And be as thou wert wont to be 

Ere we were disunited ? 

None doth behold us now : the power 

That led us forth at this lone hour 

Will be but ill requited 

If thou depart in scorn : oh ! come, 

And talk of our abandoned home. 

E/cmember, this is Italy, 

And we are exiles. Talk with me 

Of that our land, whose wilds and floods, 

Barren and dark although they be, 

Were dearer than these chestnut woods : 

Those heathy paths, that inland stream. 

And the blue mountains, shapes which seem 

Like wrecks of childhood^s sunny dream : 

Which that we have abandoned now. 

Weighs on the heart like that remorse 

Wliich altered friendship leaves. 

It was a vast and antique wood. 

Thro' which they took their way ; 

And the grey shades of evening 

O^er that green wilderness did fling 

Still deeper solitude. 

Pursuing still the path that wound 

The vast and knotted trees around 

Thro' which slow shades were wandering. 

To a deep lawny dell they came. 

To a stone seat beside a spring, 

O'er which the columned wood did frame 

[11] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

A roofless temple, like the fane 
"Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain, 
Man^s early race once knelt beneath 
The overhanging deity. 
O'er this fair fountain hung the sky, 
Now spangled with rare stars. The snake. 
The pale snake, that with eager breath 
Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake. 
Is beaming with many a mingled hue. 
Shed from yon dome's eternal blue, 
Wlien he floats on that dark and lucid flood 
In the light of his own loveliness ; 
And the birds that in the fountain dip 
Their plumes, with fearless fellowship 
Above and round him wheel and hover. 
The fitful wind is heard to stir 
One solitary leaf on high ; 
The chirping of the grasshopper 
Pills every pause. There is emotion 
In all that dwells at noontide here : 
Then, thro' the intricate wild wood, 
A maze of life and light and motion 
Is woven. But there is stillness now : 
Gloom, and the trance of Nature now : 
The snake is in his cave asleep ; 
The birds are on the branches dreaming : 
Only the shadows creep : 
Only the glow-worm is gleaming : 
Only the owls and the nightingales 
Wake in this dell when daylight fails, 
[12] 



THE YEAR 1818 

And grey shades gather in the woods : 
And the owls have all fled far away 
In a merrier glen to hoot and play, 
For the moon is veiled and sleeping now. 
The accustomed nightingale still broods 
On her accustomed bough. 
But she is mute ; for her false mate 
Has fled and left her desolate. 

Daylight on its last purple cloud 
Was Imgering grey, and soon her strain 
The nightingale began ; now loud, 
Climbhig in circles the windless sky. 
Now dying music ; suddenly 
'T is scattered in a thousand notes. 
And now to the hushed ear it floats 
Like field smells known in infancy. 
Then failing, soothes the air again. 

TO MRS. SHELLEY- 
(Bagni di Ltjcca) 

Florence, August 20, 1818. 

As we approached Elorence, the country became culti- 
vated to a very high degree, the plain was filled with the 
most beautiful villas, and, as far as the eye could reach, 
the mountains were covered with them ; for the plains are 
bounded on all sides by blue and misty mountains. The 
vines are here trailed on low trellises of reeds, interwoven 
[13] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

into crosses, to support them, and the grapes, now almost 
ripe, are exceedingly abundant. You everywhere meet 
those teams of beautiful white oxen, which are now labour- 
ing the little vine-divided fields with their Virgilian ploughs 
and carts. Florence itself, that is, the Lung' Arno (for I 
have seen no more), I think is the most beautiful city I 
have yet seen. It is surrounded with cultivated hills, and 
from the bridge which crosses the broad channel of the 
Arno, the view is the most animated and elegant I ever 
saw. You see three or four bridges, one apparently sup- 
ported by Corinthian pillars, and the white sails of the 
boats, relieved by the deep green of the forest, which comes 
to the water's edge, and the sloping hills covered with 
bright villas on every side. Domes and steeples rise on 
all sides, and the cleanliness is remarkably great. On the 
other side there are the foldings of the Yale of Arno 
above ; first the hills of olive and vine, then the chestnut 
woods, and then the blue and misty pine forests, which 
invest the aerial Apennines, that fade in the distance. I 
have seldom seen a city so lovely at first sight as 
Elorence. 

PEAGMENT 

TO MAEY SHELLEY 

O Mary dear, that you were here 
With your brown eyes bright and clear. 
And your sweet voice, like a bird 
Singing love to its lone mate 
In the ivy bower disconsolate ; 
Yoice the sweetest ever heard I 
[14] 



GO 

3 SI 




THE YEAR 1818 

And your brow more . . . 

Than the sky 

Of this azure Italy. 

Mary dear, come to me soon, 

I am not well whilst thou art far ; 

As sunset to the sphered moon. 

As twilight to the western star. 

Thou, beloved, art to me. 

Mary dear, that you were here ; 
The Castle echo whispers " Here ! *' ^ 
EsTE, September, 1818. 

1 Compare this poem, written to Mary Shelley during the 
poet's brief absence from her at Este, with her own de- 
scription of the place, which soon afterward became their 
home : — 

" The villa was situated on the very overhanging brow of a 
low hill at the foot of a range of higher ones. ... A slight 
ravine, with a road in its depth, divided the garden from the 
hill, on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este, 
whose dark massive wall gave forth an echo, and from whose 
ruined crevices owls and bats flitted forth at night, as the 
crescent moon sunk behind the black and heavy battlements." 



[15] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



LINES WEITTEN AMONG THE EUGANEAN 
HILLS 1 

October, 1818 

Many a green isle needs must be 
In the deep wide sea of misery, 
Or the mariner, worn and wan. 
Never thus could voyage on 
Day and night, and night and day, 
Drifting on his dreary way. 
With the solid darkness black 
Closing round his vessels track; 
Wiiilst above the sunless sky, 
Big with clouds, hangs heavily, 
And behind the tempest fleet 
Hurries on with lightning feet, 
Eiving sail, and cord, and plank. 
Till the ship has almost drank 
Death from the o'er-b rimming deep ; 
And sinks down, down, like that sleep 
"When the dreamer seems to be 
"Weltering through eternity ; 
And the dim low line before 
Of a dark and distant shore 
Still recedes, as ever still, 

^ "Written after a day's excursion among the mountains whicli surround 
Arqua — once the retreat and now the sepulchi-e of Petrarch. — Shelley's 
Note. 



[16] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Longing with divided will 

But no power to seek or shun, 

He is ever drifted on 

O'er the unreposing wave 

To the haven of the grave. 

What, if there no friends will greet ; 

"What, if there no heart will meet 

His with love's impatient beat ; 

Wander wheresoever he may. 

Can he dream before that day 

To find refuge from distress 

In friendship's smile, in love's caress ? 

Then 't will wreak him little woe 

Whether such there be or no : 

Senseless is the breast, and cold. 

Which relenting love would fold ; 

Bloodless are the veins and chill 

Which the pulse of pain did fill ; 

Every little living nerve 

That from bitter words did swerve 

Bound the tortured lips and brow. 

Are like sapless leaflets now 

Frozen upon December's bough. 

On the beach of a northern sea 

Which tempests shake eternally. 

As once the wretch there lay to sleep. 

Lies a solitary heap. 

One white skull and seven dry bones. 

On the margin of the stones, 

[IT] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Where a few grey rushes stand. 

Boundaries of the sea and land : 

Nor is heard one voice of wail 

But the sea-mews, as they sail 

O'er the billows of the gale ; 

Or the whirlwind up and down 

Howling, like a slaughtered town. 

When a king in glory rides 

Through the pomp of fratricides : 

Those unburied bones around 

There is many a mournful sound; 

There is no lament for him. 

Like a sunless vapour, dim, 

Who once clothed with life and thought 

What now moves nor murmurs not. 

Ay, many flowering islands lie 
In the waters of wide Agony : 
To such a one this morn was led 
My bark, by soft winds piloted : 
■"Mid the mountains Euganean 
I stood listening to the paean. 
With which the legioned rooks did hail 
The sun's uprise majestical; 
Gathering round with wings all hoar, 
Thro' the dewy mist they soar 
Like grey shades, till the eastern heaven 
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even, 
Elecked with fire and azure, lie 
In the unfathomable sky, 
[18] 



THE YEAR 1818 

So their plumes of purple grain, 
Starred with drops of golden rain, 
Gleam above the sunlight woods. 
As in silent multitudes 
On the morning''s fitful gale 
Thro' the broken mist they sail. 
And the vapours cloven and gleaming 
Follow down the dark steep streaming, 
Till all is bright, and clear, and still, 
Bound the solitary hill. 

Beneath is spread like a green sea 
The waveless plain of Lombardy, 
Bounded by the vaporous air. 
Islanded by cities fair ; 
Underneath day^s azure eyes 
Ocean^s nursling, Venice lies, 
A peopled labyrinth of walls, 
Amphitrite''s destined halls, 
Which her hoary sire now paves 
With his blue and beaming waves. 
Lo ! the sun upsprings behind, 
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined 
On the level quivering line 
Of the waters crystalline ; 
And before that chasm of light. 
As within a furnace bright. 
Column, tower, and dome, and spire, 
Shine like obelisks of fire. 
Pointing with inconstant motion 
[19] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Prom the altar of dark ocean 
To the sapphire-tinted skies; 
As the flames of sacrifice 
From the marble shrines did rise, 
As to pierce the dome of gold 
Where Apollo spoke of old. 

Sun-girt City, thou hast been 
Ocean's child, and then his queen; 
Now is come a darker day, 
And thou soon must be his prey. 
If the power that raised thee here 
Hallow so thy watery bier. 
A less drear ruin then than now. 
With thy conquest-branded brow 
Stooping to the slave of slaves 
Prom thy throne, among the waves 
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew 
Flies, as once before it flew. 
O'er thine isles depopulate. 
And all is in its ancient state. 
Save where many a palace gate 
With green sea-flowers overgrown 
Like a rock of ocean's own. 
Topples ^ o'er the abandoned sea 
As the tides change sullenly. 
The fisher on his watery way. 
Wandering at the close of day, 

1 This serious apprehension of the gradual sinking of Venice has become 
more pronounced since the crimibling of the Campanile in 1902. — Ed. 

[20] 






* is 




THE YEAR 1818 

Will spread his sail and seize his oar 
Till he pass the gloomy shore^ 
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep 
Bursting o''er the starlight deep, 
Lead a rapid masque of death 
O'er the waters of his path. 

Those who alone thy towers behold 
Quivering through aerial gold. 
As I now behold them here. 
Would imagine not they were 
Sepulchres, where human forms^ 
Like pollution-nourished worms 
To the corpse of greatness cling. 
Murdered, and now mouldering : 
But if Freedom should awake 
In her omni}X)tence, and shake 
From the Celtic Anarch's hold 
All the keys of dungeons cold. 
Where a hundred cities lie 
Chained like thee, ingloriously. 
Thou and all thy sister band 
Might adorn this sunny laud. 
Twining memories of old time 
With new virtues more sublime; 
If not, perish thou and they. 
Clouds which stain truth^s rising day 
By her sun consumed away, 
Earth can spare ye : while like flowers. 
In the waste of years and hours, 
[21] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Erom your dust new nations spring 
With more kindly blossoming. 

Perish — let there only be 
Floating o'er thy hearthless sea 
As the garment of thy sky 
Clothes the world immortally, 
One remembrance, more sublime 
Than the tattered pall of time, 
"Which scarce hides thy visage wan ; — 
That a tempest-cleaving Swan ^ 
Of the songs of Albion, 
Driven from his ancestral streams 
By the might of evil dreams, 
Eound a nest in thee ; and Ocean 
Welcomed him with such emotion 
That its joy grew his, and sprung 
From his lips like music flung 
O'er a mighty thunder-fit 
Chastening terror : — what though yet 
Poesy's unfailing Eiver, 
Which thro' Albion winds for ever 
Lashing with melodious wave 
Many a sacred Poet's grave, 
Mourn its latest nursling fled? 
What though thou with all thy dead 
Scarce can for this fame repay 
Aught thine own ? oh, rather say 
Though thy sins and slaveries foul 

^ Byron, then living in Venice. — Ed. 

[22 ] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Overcloud a sunlike soul ? 

As the ghost of Homer clings 

Eound Scamander's wasting springs; 

As divinest Shakespere's might 

Fills Avon and the world with light 

Like omniscient power which he 

Imaged 'mid mortality; 

As the love from Petrarch's urn. 

Yet amid yon hills doth burn, 

A quenchless lamp by which the heart 

Sees things unearthly ; — so thou art 

Mighty spirit — so shall be 

The City that did refuge thee. 

Lo, the sun floats up the sky 
Like thought-winged Liberty, 
Till the universal light 
Seems to level plain and height; 
From the sea a mist has spread, 
And the beams of morn lie dead 
On the towers of Yenice now. 
Like its glory long ago. 
By the skirts of that grey cloud 
Many-domed Padua proud 
Stands, a peopled solitude, 
'Mid the harvest-shining plain. 
Where the peasant heaps his grain 
In the garner of his foe. 
And the milk-white oxen slow 
"With the purple vintage strain, 
[ 23 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Heaped upon the creaking wain. 
That the brutal Celt may swill 
Drunken sleep with savage will; 
And the sickle to the sword 
Lies unchanged, though many a lord. 
Like a weed whose shade is poison, 
Overgrows this region's foison, 
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come 
To destruction's harvest home : 
Men must reap the things they sow. 
Force from force must ever flow, 
Or worse ; but ■'t is a bitter woe 
That love or reason cannot change 
The despot''s rage, the slave's revenge, 

Padua, thou within whose walls 
Those mute guests at festivals. 
Son and Mother, Death and Sin, 
Played at dice for Ezzelin, 
Till Death cried, " I win, I win ! " 
And Sin cursed to lose the wager, 
But Death promised, to assuage her. 
That he would petition for 
Her to be made Yice-Emperor, 
Wlien the destined years were o'er. 
Over all between the Po 
And the eastern Alpine snow. 
Under the mighty Austrian. 
Sin smiled so as Sin only can, 
And since that time, ay, long before, 
[24] 



hi 

< > 



2c ;: 




THE YEAR 1818 

Both have ruled from shore to shore. 
That incestuous pair, who follow 
Tjrants as the sun the swallow, 
As Eepentance follows Crime, 
And as changes follow Time. 

In thine halls the lamp of learning, 
Padua, now no more is burning ; 
Like a meteor, whose wild way 
Is lost over the grave of day. 
It gleams betrayed and to betray : 
Once remotest nations came 
To adore that sacred flame. 
When it lit not many a hearth 
On this cold and gloomy earth : 
Now new fires from antique light 
Spring beneath the wide world's might; 
But their spark lies dead in thee, 
Trampled out by tyranny. 
As the Norway woodman quells. 
In the depths of piny dells. 
One light flame among the brakes. 
While the boundless forest shakes. 
And its mighty trunks are torn 
By the fire thus lowly born : 
The spark beneath his feet is dead, 
He starts to see the flames it fed 
Howling through the darkened sky 
With a myriad tongues victoriously. 
And sinks down in fear : so thou, 
[25] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Tyranny, beholdest now 
Light around thee, and thou hearest 
The loud flames ascend, and fearest : 
Grovel on the earth ; ay, hide 
In the dust thy purple pride ! 

Noon descends around me now : 
'T is the noon of autumn's glow, 
When a soft and purple mist 
Like a vaporous amethyst. 
Or an air-dissolved star 
Mingling light and fragrance, far 
Prom the curved horizon's bound 
To the point of heaven's profound. 
Pills the overflowing sky ; 
And the plains that silent lie 
Underneath, the leaves unsodden 
Where the infant frost has trodden 
With his morning-winged feet, 
WTiose bright print is gleaming yet; 
And the red and golden vines. 
Piercing with their trellised lines 
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness ; 
The dun and bladed grass no less. 
Pointing from this hoary tower 
In the windless air ; the flower 
Glimmering at my feet ; the line 
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine 
In the south dimly islanded; 
And the Alps, whose snows are spread 
[26] 



THE YEAR 1818 

High between the clouds and sun ; 

And of living things each one ; 

And my spirit which so long 

Darkened this swift stream of song, 

Interpenetrated lie 

By the glory of the sky : 

Be it love, light, harmony, 

Odour, or the soul of all 

Which from heaven like dew doth fall. 

Or the mind which feeds this verse 

Peopling the lone universe. 

Noon descends, and after noon 

Autumn''s evening meets me soon. 

Leading the infantine moon. 

And that one star, which to her 

Almost seems to minister 

Half the crimson light she brings 

From the sunset^s radiant springs : 

And the soft dreams of the morn 

(Which like winged winds had borne 

To that silent isle, which lies 

^Mid remembered agonies, 

The frail bark of this lone being) 

Pass, to other sufferers fleeing. 

And its ancient pilot. Pain, 

Sits beside the helm again. 

Other flowering isles must be 
In the sea of life and agony : 
Other spirits float and flee 
[27] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

O'er that gulpli : even now, perhaps. 
On some rock the wild wave wraps, 
With folded wings they waiting sit 
For my bark, to pilot it 
To some calm and blooming cove. 
Where for me, and those I love. 
May a windless bower be built. 
Far from passion, pain, and guilt. 
In a dell 'mid lawny hills. 
Which the wild sea-murmur fills, 
And soft sunshine, and the sound 
Of old forests echoing round, 
And the light and smell divine 
Of all flowers that breathe and shine : 
We may live so happy there. 
That the spirits of the air. 
Envying us, may even entice 
To our healing paradise 
The polluting multitude; 
But their rage would be subdued 
By that clime divine and calm. 
And the winds whose wings rain balm 
On the uplifted soul, and leaves 
Under which the bright sea heaves ; 
While each breathless interval 
In their whisperings musical 
The inspired soul supplies 
With its own deep melodies. 
And the love which heals all strife 
Circling, like the breath of life, 
[28] 



1= CAJ 

= > 



ct 



i^ 




THE YEAR 1818 

All things in that sweet abode 
With its own mild brotherhood : 
Thejj not it would change; and soon 
Every sprite beneath the moon 
Would repent its envy vahi, 
And the earth grow young again. 

MAEENGHI i 
I 

Let those who pine in pride or in revenge, 
Or think that ill for ill should be repaid. 

Or barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange 
Euins the merchants of such thriftless trade, 

Yisit the tower of Yado, and unlearn 

Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn. 

II 
A massy tower yet overhangs the town, 

A scattered group of ruined dwellings now. 

Ill 

Another scene ere wise Etruria knew 
Its second ruin through internal strife, 

And tyrants through the breach of discord threw 
The chain which binds and kills. As death to life, 

As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison) 

So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom^s foison. 

^ This fragment refers to an event told in Sisraondi's Ristoire des Ee- 
publiques Italiennes, wliicli occurred during the war when Florence finally 
suhdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province. — Mrs. Shelley. 

[29] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



IV 

In Pisa^s church a cup of sculptured gold 

Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn 

At sacrament : more holy ne^er of old 

Etrurians mingled with the shades forlorn 

Of moon-illumined forests. 



And reconciling factions wet their lips 

With that dread wine_, and swear to keep each spirit 
Undarkened by their country's last eclipse. 

• ••••• 

VI 

Was Florence the liberticide ? that band 

Of free and glorious brothers who had planted. 

Like a green isle ''mid Ethiopian sand, 
A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted 

Of many impious faiths — wise, just — do they, 

Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants'* prey ? 

VII 

foster-nurse of man^s abandoned glory. 

Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour ; 

Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story, 
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender : — 

The light-invested angel Poesy 

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee. 
[30] 



THE YEAR 1818 

VIII 
And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught 

By loftiest meditations ; marble knew 
The sculptor's fearless soul — and as he wrought,, 

The grace of his own power and freedom grew. 
And more than all, heroic, just, sublime. 
Thou wert among the false — was this thy crime ? 

IX 
Yes ; and on Pisa^s marble walls the twine 

Of direst weeds hangs garlanded — the snake 
Inhabits its wrecked palaces ; — in thine 

A beast of subtler venom now doth make 
Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown. 
And thus thy victim^'s fate is as thine own. 

X 

The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare. 
And love and freedom blossom but to wither ; 

And good and ill like vines entangled are. 

So that their grapes may oft be plucked together ; 

Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make 

Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi''& sake. 

XI 

No record of his crime remains in story. 

But if the morning bright as evening shone. 

It was some high and holy deed, by glory 
Pursued into forgetfulness, whicli won 

From the blind crowd he made secure and free 

The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy. 
[31] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XII 

For when by sound of trumpet was declared 
A price upon his life, and there was set 

A penalty of blood on all who shared 
So much of water with him as might wet 

His lips, which speech divided not — he went 

Alone, as you may guess, to banishment. 

XIII 
Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast, 

He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold. 
Month after month endured ; it was a feast 

Whene'er he found those globes of deep-red gold 
"Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear. 
Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. 

XIV 

And in the roofless huts of vast morasses. 

Deserted by the fever-stricken serf. 
All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, 

And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf. 
And where the huge and speckled aloe made. 
Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade, 

XV 

He housed himself. There is a point of strand 
Near Vado^s tower and town ; and on one side 

The treacherous marsh divides it from the land. 
Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide. 

And on the other creeps eternally. 

Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea. 
[ 32 ] 



THE YEAR 1818 

XVI 
Here the earth^s breath is pestilence, and few 

But things whose nature is at war with life — 
Snakes and ill worms — endure its mortal dew. 

The trophies of the clime's victorious strife — 
White bones_, and locks of dun and yellow hair_, 
And ringed horns which buffaloes did wear — 

XVII 
And at the utmost point . . . stood there 

The relics of a weed-inwoven cot. 
Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer 

Had lived seven days there : the pursuit was hot 
When he was cold. The birds that were his grave 
Eell dead upon their feast in Vado'^s wave. 

XVIII 
There must have lived within Marenghi''s heart 

That fire,, more warm and bright than life or hope, 
(Which to the martyr makes his dungeon . . . 

More joyous than the heaven^s majestic cope 
To his oppressor), warring with decay, — 
Or he could ne'er have lived years, day by day. 

XIX 

Nor was his state so lone as you might think. 

He had tamed every newt and snake and toad. 
And every seagull which sailed down to drink 

Those ... ere the death-mist went abroad. 
3 [ 33 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And each one,, with peculiar talk and play, 
Wiled^ not untaught, his silent time away. 

XX 

And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at night 
Came licking with blue tongues his veined feet ; 

And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, 
In many entangled figures quaint and sweet 

To some enchanted music they would dance — 

Until they vanished at the first moon-glance. 

XXI 

He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed 
The summer dewdrops in the golden dawn ; 

And, ere the hoar-frost vanished, he could read 
Its pictured footprints, as on spots of lawn 

Its delicate brief touch in silence weaves 

The likeness of the wood^s remembered leaves. 

XXII 
And many a fresh Spring-morn would he awaken — 

While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron 
Quivering in crimson fire, the peaks unshaken 

Of mountains and blue isles which did environ 
With air-clad crags that plain of land and sea, — 
And feel liberty. 

XXIII 
And in the moonless nights, when the dim ocean 

Heaved underneath the heaven, . . . 
Starting from dreams . . . 

Communed with the immeasurable world; 
[34] 



THE YEAR 1818 

And felt his life beyond his limbs dilated^ 
Till his mind grew like that it contemplated. 

XXIV 
His food was the wild fig and strawberry ; 

The milky pine-nuts which the autumnal blast 
Shakes into the tall grass ; and such small fry 

As from the sea by winter-storms are cast ; 
And the coarse bulbs of iris-flowers he found 
Knotted in clumps under the spongy ground. 

XXV 

And so were kindled powers and thoughts which made 
His solitude less dark. When memory came 

(For years gone by leave each a deepening shade), 
His spirit basked in its internal flame, — 

As, when the black storm hurries round at night. 

The fisher basks beside his red fire-light. 

XXVI 
Yet human hopes and cares and faiths and errors, 

Like billows un awakened by the wind. 
Slept in Marenghi still ; but that all terrors, 

Weakness, and doubt, had withered in his mind. 
His couch . . . 

• ••••• 

XXVII 
And, when he saw beneath the sunset's planet 

A black ship walk over the crimson ocean, — 
Its pennons streaming on the blasts that fan it. 
Its sarils and ropes all tense and without motion, 
[35] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Like the dark ghost of the unburied even 
Striding across the orange-coloured heaven, — 

XXYIII 

The thought of his own kind who made the soul 

Which sped that winged shape through night and 
day,-— 
The thought of his own country . . . 



JULIAN AND MADDALQi 
A CONVEESATION 

PREFACE 

The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme. 
The goats with the green leaves of budding Spring, 
Are satui-ated not — nor Love with tears. 

Virgil's Gallus. 

Count Maddalo is a Venetian nobleman of ancient 
family and of great fortune, who, without mixing much in 
the society of his countrymen, resides chiefly at his mag- 
nificent palace in that city. He is a person of the most 
consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his 
energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his 
degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud : 
he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary 
mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an 

1 Julian is the idealized portrait of Shelley himself; Maddalo is Lord 
Byron. The poem was not published until after Shelley's death, although 
written during his first year in Italy. He had in mind to write three 
other poems as companions to this Venice poem, whose scenes were to be 
laid respectively in Rome, Florence, and Naples. But this scheme was 
never carried out. — Ed. 

[36] 



THE YEAR 1818 

intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. 
His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than 
those of other men ; and, instead of the latter having been 
employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent 
each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself, for 
want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. 
I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other 
word to express the concentred and impatient feelings 
Avhich consume him ; but it is on his own hopes and affec- 
tions only that he seems to trample, for in social life no 
human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming 
than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His 
more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication ; men 
are held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much ; and 
there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adven- 
tures in different countries. 

Julian is an Englishman of good family, passionately 
attached to those philosophical notions which assert the 
power of man over his own mind, and the immense im- 
provements of which, by the extinction of certain moral 
superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible. 
Without concealing the evil in the world, he is for ever 
speculating how good may be made superior. He is a 
complete infidel, and a scoffer at all things reputed holy ; 
and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his 
taunts against religion. What Maddalo thinks on these 
matters is not exactly known. Julian, in spite of his 
heterodox opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess 
some good qualities. How far this is possible the pious 
reader will determine. Julian is rather serious. 
[37] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Of the Maniac ^ I can give no information. He seems^ 
by his own account^ to have been disappointed in love. 
He was evidently a very cultivated and amiable person 
when in his right senses. His story, told at length, might 
be like many other stories of the same kind : the uncon- 
nected exclamations of his agony will perhaps be found a 
sufficient comment for the text of every heart. 

I RODE one evening with Count Maddalo 

Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow 

Of Adria towards Yenice : a bare strand 

Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand. 

Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds. 

Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds. 

Is this; an uninhabited sea-side, 

"Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried. 

Abandons ; and no other object breaks 

The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes 

Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes 

A narrow space of level sand thereon. 

Where 't was our wont to ride while day went down. 

This ride was my delight. I love all waste 

And solitary places; where we taste 

The pleasure of believing what we see 

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be : 

1 Some critics have inferred that in the IManiac, Shelley revealed much 
of his own darkest experiences ; — that vs^hile Julian is Shelley in 1818, the 
distracted lover is Shelley as he conceived himself to have been in 1814, 
and that the poem therefore offers two pictui*es of its author. For some 
reason unknown, Shelley had ordered it to he published without his name ; 
also for some reason unknown, it was withheld from publication altogether 
by his friend Leigh Hunt, to whom it was sent. — Ed. 

[ 38 ] 



THE YEAR 1818 

And such was this wide ocean, and this shore 
More barren than its billows ; and yet more 
Than all, with a remembered friend I love 
To ride as then I rode ; — for the winds drove 
The living spray along the sunny air 
Into our faces ; the blue heavens were bare. 
Stripped to their depths by the awakening north ; 
And, from the waves, sound like delight broke forth 
Harmonising with solitude, and sent 
Into our hearts aerial merriment. 
So, as we rode, we talked ; and the swift thought. 
Winging itself with laughter, lingered not. 
But flew from brain to brain ; such glee was ours. 
Charged with light memories of remembered hours. 
None slow enough for sadness : till we came 
Homeward, which always make the spirit tame. 
This day had been cheerful but cold, and now 
The sun was sinking, and the wind also. 
Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be 
Talk interrupted with such raillery 
As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn 
The thoughts it would extinguish : — ■'t was forlorn, 
Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell. 
The devils held within the dales of Hell 
Concerning God, freewill, and destiny : 
Of all that earth has been or yet may be. 
All that vain men imagine or believe. 
Or hope can paint or suffering may achieve. 
We descanted, and I (for ever still 
Is it not wise to make the best of ill ?) 
[39] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Argued against despondency, but pride 
Made my companion take the darker side. 
The sense that he was greater than his kind 
Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind 
By gazing on its own exceeding light. 
Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight. 
Over the horizon of the mountains ; — Oh, 
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow 
Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee. 
Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy ! 
Thy mountains, seas and vineyards and the towers 
Of cities they encircle ! — it was ours 
To stand on thee, beholding it ; and then. 
Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men 
Were waiting for us with the gondola. — 
As those who pause on some delightful way 
Tho^ bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood 
Looking upon the evening, and the flood 
Which lay between the city and tlie shore 
Paved with, the image of the sky. The hoar 
And aery Alps towards the North appeared 
Thro^ mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared 
Between the East and West ; and half the sky 
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, 
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
Down the steep West into a wondrous hue 
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 
Among the many-folded hills : they were 
Those famous Euganean hills, w^hich bear 
[40] 



±\. 




" ^3Ikl the mountains Euf/anean 

1 stood Usteninc/ to the pwan 

With if)hich the Isifioned rooks did hall 

The suns uprise majestical.'''' — Euganean Hills, p.lS. 




" Those famous Eu(/anean hills, ivhlch bear 
yis seen from Lido thro" tht^ hnrhmir nilfin 



THE YEAR 1818 

As seen from Lido thro^ the harbour piles 
The likeness of a clump of peaked isles — 
And then, as if the Earth and Sea had been 
Dissolved into one lake of fire^ were seen 
Those mountains towering as from waves of flame 
Around the vaporous sun_, from which there came 
The inmost purple spirit of light,, and made 
Their very peaks transparent. ^' Ere it fade/' 
Said my companion, '^ I will show you soon 
A better station '' — so, o'er the lagune 
We glided, and from that funereal bark 
I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark 
How from their many isles in evening's gleam. 
Its temples and its palaces did seem 
Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven. 
I was about to speak, when — " We are even 
Now at the point I meant," said Maddalo, 
And bade the gondolieri cease to row. 
'' Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well 
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.''' 
I looked, and saw between us and the sun 
A building on an island ; such a one 
As age to age might add, for uses vile, 
A windowless, deformed and dreary pile; 
And on the top an open tower, where hung 
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung ; 
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue : 
The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled 
In strong and black relief. — " What we behold 
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,"" 
[41] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Said Maddalo, ^' and ever at this hour 
Those who may cross the water, hear that bell 
Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell 
To vespers/'' — ^' As much skill as need to pray- 
In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they 
To their stern maker/^ I replied. ^^ ho ! 
Yoa talk as in years past/^ said Maddalo. 
" 'T is strange men change not. You were ever still 
Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel, 
A wolf for the meek lambs — if you can^t swim 
Beware of Providence." I looked on him, 
But the gay smile had faded in his eye, 
" And such/^ — he cried, ^' is our mortality, 
And tliis must be the emblem and the sign 
Of what should be eternal and divine ! — 
And like that black and dreary bell, the soul 
Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll 
Our thoughts and our desires to meet below 
Eound the rent heart and pray — as madmen do 
Por what ? they know not, till the night of death 
As sunset that strange vision, severeth 
Our memory from itself, and us from all 
We sought and yet were baffled.'''' I recall 
The sense of what he said, altho' I mar 
The force of his expressions. The broad star 
Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill, 
And the black bell became invisible. 
And the red tower looked grey, and all between 
The churches, ships and palaces were seen 
Huddled in gloom ; — into the purple sea 
[42] 



THE YEAR 1818 

The orange hues of heaven sunk silently. 
We hardlj spoke, and soon the gondola 
Conveyed me to my lodgings by the way. 

The following morn was rainy, cold and dim, 
Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him. 
And whilst I waited with his child I played ; 
A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made, 
A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being, 
Graceful without design and unforeseeing, 
With eyes — Oh speak not of her eyes ! — which seem 
Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam 
With such deep meaning, as we never see 
But in the human countenance. With me 
She was a special favourite : I had nursed 
Her fine and feeble limbs when she came first 
To this bleak world ; and she yet seemed to know 
On second sight her ancient playfellow. 
Less changed than she was by six months or so ; 
For after her first shyness was worn out 
We sate there, rolling billiard balls about. 
When the Count entered. Salutations past ; 
^' The word you spoke last night might well have cast 
A darkness oji my spirit — if man be 
The passive thing you say, I should not see 
Much harm in the religions and old saws 
(Tho'' I may never own such leaden laws) 
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke : 
Mme is another faith'' — thus much I spoke 
And noting he replied not, added : " See 
This lovely child, blithe, innocent, and free, 
[ 43 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

She spends a happy time with little care 
While we to such sick thoughts subjected are 
As came on you last night — it is our will 
Which thus enchains us to permitted ill — 
We might be otherwise — we might be all 
We dream of, happy, high, majestical. 
Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek 
But in our mind ? and if we were not weak 
Should we be less in deed than in desire ? " 
*' Aye, if we were not weak — and we aspire 
How vainly to be strong ! '^ said Maddalo : 
" You talk Utopia/^ " It remains to know," 
I then rejoined, " and those who try may find 
How strong the chains are which our spirit bind ; 
Brittle perchance as straw. ... We are assured 
Much may be conquered, much may be endured 
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know 
That we have power over ourselves to do 
And suffer — what, we know not till we try ; 
But something nobler than to live and die — 
So taught those kings of old philosophy 
Who reigned, before Religion made men blind ; 
And those who suffer with their suffering kind 
Yet feel their faith, religion." " My dear friend,'' 
Said Maddalo, '^ my judgment will not bend 
To your opinion, tho' I think you might 
Make such a system refutation-tight 
As far as words go. I knew one like you 
Who to this city came some months ago. 
With whom I argued in this sort, and he 
[ 44 ] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Is now gone mad, — and so he answered me, — 
Poor fellow ! But if jou would like to go 
We '11 visit him, and his wild talk will show 
How vain are such aspiring theories." 
" I hope to prove the induction otherwise. 
And that a want of that true theory, still, 
Which seeks a ' soul of goodness ' in things ill. 
Or in himself or others, has thus bowed 
His being — there are some by nature proud. 
Who patient in all else demand but this — 
To love and be beloved with gentleness ; 
And being scorned, what wonder if they die 
Some living death? this is not destiny 
But man's own wiKul ill." 

As thus I spoke 
Servants announced the gondola, and we 
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea 
Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands. 
We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands, 
Eierce yells and howiings and lamentings keen. 
And laughter where complaint had merrier been, 
Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers 
Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs 
Into an old courtyard. I heard on high. 
Then, fragments of most touching melody. 
But looking up saw not the singer there. 
Through the black bars in the tempestuous air 
I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing, 
Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing. 
Of those who on a sudden were beguiled 
[46] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled 
Hearing sweet sounds. — Then I : " Methinks there 

were 
A cure of these with patience and kind care, 
If music can thus move . . . but what is he 
Whom we seek here ? " ^^ Of his sad history 
I know but this/^ said Maddalo, ^' he came 
To Venice a dejected man, and fame 
Said he was wealthy, or he had been so ; 
Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe ; 
But he was ever talking in such sort 
As you do — far more sadly ; he seemed hurt, 
Even as a man with his peculiar wrong. 
To hear but of the oppression of the strong, 
Or those absurd deceits (I think with you 
In some respects you know) which carry through 
The excellent impostors of this earth 
When they outface detection : he had worth. 
Poor fellow! but a humourist in his way '' — 
^^ Alas, what drove him mad ? ''^ "I cannot say ; 
A lady came with him from Prance, and when 
She left him and returned, he wandered then 
About yon lonely isles of desert sand 
Till he grew wild — he had no cash or land 
Kemaining, — the police had brought him here — 
Some fancy took him and he would not bear 
Eemoval ; so I fitted up for him 
Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim. 
And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers 
Which had adorned his life in happier hours, 
[46] 



THE YEAR 1818 

And instruments of music — you may guess 

A stranger could do little more or less 

Eor one so gentle and unfortunate : 

And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight 

From madmen's chains^ and make this Hell appear 

A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear/'' — 

" Nay, this was kind of you — he had no claim. 

As the world says"*^ — ^^None — but the very same 

Which I on all mankind were I as he 

Fallen to such deep reverse ; — his melody 

Is interrupted — now we hear the din 

Of madmen, shriek on shriek again begin ; 

Let us now visit himj after this strain 

He ever communes with himself again. 

And sees nor hears not any/' Having said 

These words we called the keeper, and he led 

To an apartment opening on the sea — 

There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully 

Near a piano, his pale fingers twined 

One with the other, and the ooze and wind 

Bushed through an open casement, and did sway 

His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray; 

His head was leaning on a music book. 

And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook; 

His lips were pressed against a folded leaf 

In hue too beautiful for health, and grief 

Smiled in their motions as they lay apart — 

As one who wroudit from his own fervid heart 

o 

The eloquence of passion, soon he raised 
His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed 
[47] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And spoke — sometimes as one who wrote and thought 

His words might move some heart that heeded not 

If sent to distant lands : and then as one 

Eeproaching deeds never to be undone 

With wondering self-compassion ; then his speech 

Was lost in grief, and then his words came each 

Unmodulated, cold, expressionless, — 

But that from one jarred accent you might guess 

It was despair made them so uniform : 

And all the while the loud and gusty storm 

Hissed thro^ the window, and we stood behind 

Stealing his accents from the envious wind 

Unseen. I yet remember what he said 

Distinctly : such impression his words made. 

" Month after month,"" he cried, " to bear this load 
And as a jade urged by the whip and goad 
To drag life on, which like a heavy chain 
Lengthens behind with many a link of pain ! — 
And not to speak my grief — not to dare 
To give a human voice to my despair. 
But live and move, and wretched thing ! smile on 
As if I never went aside to groan. 
And wear this mask of falsehood even to those 
Who are most dear — not for my own repose — 
Alas ! no scorn or pain or hate could be 
So heavy as that falsehood is to me — 
But that I cannot bear more altered faces 
Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces. 
More misery, disappointment, and mistrust 
To own me for their father . . . Would the dust 
[48] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Were covered in upon my body now ! 
That the life ceased to toil within my brow ! 
And then these thoughts would at the least be fled ; 
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead. 

" What Power delights to torture us ? I know 
That to myself I do not wholly owe 
What now I suffer, tho^ in part I may. 
Alas ! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way 
Where wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain, 
My shadow, which will leave me not again — 
If I have erred, there was no joy in error. 
But pain and insult and unrest and terror ; 
I have not as some do, bought penitence 
With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence, 
Por then, if love and tenderness and truth 
Had overlived hope^s momentary youth, 
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting ; 
But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting. 
Met love excited by far other seeming 
Until the end was gained ... as one from dreaming 
Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state 

Such as it is. 

" O Thou, my spirit's mate 
Who, for thou art compassionate and wise, 
Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes 
If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see — 
My secret groans must be unheard by thee. 
Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know 
Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe. 

^' Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed 

4 [ 49 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

In friendship^ let me not that name degrade 
By placing on your hearts the secret load 
Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road 
To peace and that is truth, which follow ye ! 
Love sometimes leads astray to misery. 
Yet think not tho^ subdued — and I may well 
Say that I am subdued — that the full Hell 
Within me would infect the untainted breast 
Of sacred nature with its own unrest ; 
As some perverted beings think to find 
In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind 
Which scorn or hate hath wounded — how vain ! 
The dagger heals not but may rend again . . . 
Believe that I am ever still the same 
In creed as in resolve, and what may tame 
My heart, must leave the understanding free. 
Or all would sink in this keen agony — 
Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry. 
Or with my silence sanction tyranny. 
Or seek a momenta's shelter from my pain 
In any madness which the world calls gain. 
Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern 
As those which make me what I am, or turn 
To avarice or misanthropy or lust . . . 
Heap on me soon grave, thy welcome dust ! 
Till then the dungeon may demand its prey. 
And Poverty and Shame may meet and say — 
Halting beside me on the public way — 
* That love-devoted youth is ours — let ^s sit 
Beside him — he may live some six months yet/ 
[50] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Or the red scaffold, as our country bends, 
May ask some willing victim, or ye, friends, 
May fall under some sorrow which this heart 
Or hand may share or vanquish or avert ; 
I am prepared — in truth with no proud joy — 
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 
I did devote to justice and to love 
My nature, worthless now ! . . . 

" I must remove 
A veil from my pent mind. ''T is torn aside ! 
O, pallid as Death's dedicated bride. 
Thou mockery which art sitting by my side. 
Am I not wan like thee ? at the grave''s call 
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball 
To greet the ghastly paramour, for whom 
Thou hast deserted me . . . and made the tomb 
Thy bridal bed . • . . But I beside your feet 
"Will lie and watch ye from my winding sheet — 
Thus . . . wide awake tho^ dead ... yet stay, 

stay ! 
Go not so soon — I know not what I say — 
Hear but my reasons ... I am mad, I fear. 
My fancy is overwrought . . . thou art not here . . . 
Pale art thou, 'i is most true . . . but thou art gone. 
Thy work is finished ... I am left alone ! — 

" Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast 
Which, like a serpent thou envenomest 
As in repayment of the warmth it lent ? 
Didst thou not seek me for thine own content ? 
[51] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Did not thy love awaken mine ? I thought 

That thou wert she who said ^ You kiss me not 

Ever^ I fear you do not love me now ' — 

In truth I loved even to my overthrow 

Her, who would fain forget these words : but they 

Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away. 

^^ You say that I am proud — that when I speak 
My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break 
The spirit it expresses . . . Never one 
Humbled himself before, as I have done ! 
Even the instinctive worm on which we tread 
Turns, tho' it wound not — then with prostrate head 
Sinks in the dusk and writhes like me — and dies ? 
No : wears a living death of agonies ! 
As the slow shadows of the pointed grass 
Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass 
Slow, ever-moving, — making moments be 
As mine seem — each an immortality ! 

" That you had never seen me — never heard 
My voice, and more than all had ne^er endured 
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace — 
That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face — 
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out 
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root 
"With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne^er 
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there 
To disunite in horror — these were not 
With thee, like some suppressed and hideous thought 
[62] 



EANING Towers 
of Bolou;na. 




*' You might almost fancy the city is rocked 
an earthquake.''^ 

— Letter from Bologna, p. G6. 



THE YEAR 1818 

Which flits athwart our musings,, but can find 
No rest within a pure and gentle mind . . . 
Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word 
And searedst my memory o''er them^ — for I heard 
And can forget not . . . they were ministered 
One after one, those curses. Mix them up 
Like self-destroying poisons in one cup. 
And they will make one blessing which thou ne^er 
Didst imprecate for, on me, — death. 

" It were 
A cruel punishment for one most cruel 
If such can love, to make that love the fuel 
Of the mind's hell ; hate, scorn, remorse, despair : 
But me — whose heart a stranger's tear might wear 
As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone. 
Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan 
For woes which others hear not, and could see 
The absent with the glance of phantasy. 
And with the poor and trampled sit and weep. 
Following the captive to his dungeon deep ; 
Me — who am as a nerve o''er which do creep 
The else unfelt oppressions of this earth. 
And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth. 
When all beside was cold — that thou on me 
Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony — 
Such curses are from lips once eloquent 
With love's too partial praise — let none relent 
Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name 
Henceforth, if an example for the same 
[63] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

They seek ... for thou on me lookedst so, and so — 
And didst speak thus . . . and thus ... I live to show 
How much men bear and die not ! 

• ••••• 

"Thou wilt tell, 
With the grimace of hate how horrible 
It was to meet my love when thine grew less ; 
Thou wilt admire how I could e^er address 
Such features to love's work . . . this taunt, tho' true, 
(For indeed nature nor in form nor hue 
Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship) 
Shall not be thy defence ... for since thy lip 
Met mine first, years long past, since thine eye kindled 
With soft fire under mine, I have not dwindled 
Nor changed in mind or body, or in aught 
But as love changes what it loveth not 
After long years and many trials. 

" How vain 
Are words ! I thought never to speak again. 
Not even in secret, — not to my own heart — 
But from my lips the unwilling accents start. 
And from my pen the words How as I write, 
Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears . . . my sight 
Is dim to see that charactered in vain 
On this unfeeling leaf which burns the brain 
And eats into it . . . blotting all things fair 
And wise and good which time had written there. 

" Those who inflict must suffer, for they see 
The work of their own hearts and this must be 
Our chastisement or recompense — child ! 
[64] 



THE YEAR 1818 

I would that thine were like to bo more mild 

For both our wretched sakes ... for thine the most 

Who feelost already all that thou liast lost 

Witliout the power to wish it thine again; 

And as slow years pass, a funereal train 

Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend 

Following it like its shadow, wilt tliou bend 

No thought on ray dead memory ? 

" Alas, love ! 
Fear mc not . . . against thee I would not move 
A finger in despite. Do I not live 
That thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve ? 
I give thee tears for scorn and love for hate; 
And that thy lot may be less desolate 
Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain 
From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain. 
Then, when thou speakest of me, never say 
' He could forgive not.^ Here I cast away 
All human passions, all revenge, all pride ; 
I think, speak, act no ill ; I do but hide 
Under these words, like embers, every spark 
Of that which has consumed me — quick and dark 
The grave is yawning ... as its roof shall cover 
My limbs with dust and worms under and over 
So let Oblivion hide this grief . . . the air 
Closes upon my accents, as despair 
Upon my heart — let death upon despair ! ^' 

He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile. 
Then rising, with a melancholy smile 
[55] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Went to a sofa^ and lay down^ and slept 
A heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept 
And muttered some familiar name^ and we 
Wept without shame in his society. 
I think I never was impressed so much ; 
The man who were not, must have lacked a touch 
Of human nature . . . then we lingered not. 
Although our argument was quite forgot, 
But calling the attendants, went to dine 
At Maddalo^s ; yet neither cheer nor wine 
Could give us spirits, for we talked of him 
And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim ; 
And we agreed his was some dreadful ill 
Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable. 
By a dear friend ; some deadly change in love 
Of one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of; 
Por whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot 
Of falsehood on his mind which flourished not 
But in the light of all-beholding truth. 
And having stamped this canker on his youth 
She had abandoned him — and how much more 
Might be his woe, we guessed not — he had store 
Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess 
From his nice habits and his gentleness ; 
These were now lost ... it were a grief indeed 
If he had changed one un sustaining reed 
For all that such a man might else adorn. 
The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn ; 
For the wild language of his grief was high. 
Such as in measure were called poetry, 
[56] 



THE YEAR 1818 

And I remember one remark which then 
Maddalo made. He said : " Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrongs 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song/' 

If I had been an unconnected man 
I, from this moment, should have formed some plan 
Never to leave sweet Venice, — for to me 
It was delight to ride by the lone sea ; 
And then the town is silent — one may write 
Or read in gondolas by day or night, 
Having the little brazen lamp alight. 
Unseen, uninterrupted ; books are there. 
Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair 
Which were twin-born with poetry, and all 
We seek in towns, with little to recall 
Eegrets for the green country. I might sit 
In Maddalo'^s great palace, and his wit 
And subtle talk would cheer the winter night 
And make me know myself, and the firelight 
Would flash upon our faces, till the day 
Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay : 
But I had friends in London too : the chief 
Attraction here, was that I sought relief 
From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought 
Within me — 't was perhaps an idle thought — 
But I imagined that if day by day 
I watched him, and but seldom went away. 
And studied all the beatings of his heart 
With zeal, as men study some stubborn art 
[57] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Tor their own good, and could by patience find 
An entrance to the caverns of his mind, 
I might reclaim him from this dark estate ; 
In friendships I had been most fortunate — 
Yet never saw I one whom I would call 
More willingly my friend ; and this was all 
Accomplished not ; such dreams of baseless good 
Oft come and go in crowds or solitude 
And leave no trace — but what I now designed 
Made for long years impression on my mind. 
The following morning urged by my affairs 
I left bright Yenice. 

After many years 
And many changes I returned ; the name 
Of Yenice, and its aspect, was the same ; 
But Maddalo was travelling far away 
Among the mountains of Armenia. 
His dog was dead. His child had now become 
A woman ; such as it has been my doom 
To meet with few, a wonder of this earth 
Where there is little of transcendant worth. 
Like one of Shakespeare's women : kindly she, 
And with a manner beyond courtesy, 
Eeceived her father's friend ; and when I asked 
Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked 
And told as she had heard the mournful tale. 
^^That the poor sufferer's health began to fail 
Two years from my departure, but that then 
The lady who had left him, came again. 
Her mien had been imperious, but she now 
[58] 



THE YEAR 1818 

Looked meek — perhaps remorse had brought her low. 

Her coming made him better^ and they stayed 

Together at my father's — for I played 

As I remember with the lady's shawl — 

I might be six years old — but after all 

She left him " . . . ^' Why, her heart must have been 

tough : 
How did it end ? " ^' And was not this enough ? 
They met — they parted " — " Child, is there no more ? " 
" Something within that interval which bore 
The stamp of wJit/ they parted, how they met : 
Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet 
Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears. 
Ask me no more, but let the silent years 
Be closed and cered over their memory 
As yon mute marble where their corpses lie/' 
I urged and questioned still, she told me how 
All happened — but the cold world shall not know. 



TO MES. SHELLEY 

(Bagni di Lucca). 

Yenice, Sunday morning, 
August 23, 1818. 

My dearest Mary. We arrived here last night at 
twelve o'clock, and it is now before breakfast the next 
morning. I can, of course, tell you nothing of the future ; 
and though I shall not close this letter till post time, yet I 
do not know exactly when that is. Yet, if you are very 
[69] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

impatient^ look along the letter and you will see another 
date^ when I may have something to relate. 

I came from Padua hither in a gondola^ and the gondo- 
liere^ among other things, without any hint on my part, 
began talking of Lord Byron. He said he was a giov- 
inotto Inglese, with a nome stravagante, who lived very 
luxuriously, and spent great sums of money. This man, 
it seems, was one of Lord Byron^s gondolieri. No sooner 
had we arrived at the inn, than the waiter began talking 
about him — said, that he frequented Mrs. H.''s conversa- 
zioni very much. 

Our journey from Florence to Padua contained nothing 
which may not be related another time. At Padua, as I 
said, we took a gondola — and left it at three o'clock. 
These gondolas are the most beautiful and convenient 
boats in the world. They are finely carpeted and furnished 
with black, and painted black. The couches on which you 
lean are extraordinarily soft, and are so disposed as to be 
the most comfortable to those who lean or sit. The 
windows have at will either Yenetian plate-glass flowered, 
or Yenetian blinds, or blinds of black cloth to shut out the 
light. The weather here is extremely cold — indeed, some- 
times very painfully so, and yesterday it began to rain. 
We passed the laguna in the middle of the night in a 
most violent storm of wind, rain, and lightning. It was 
very curious to observe the elements above in a state of 
such tremendous convulsions, and the surface of the water 
almost calm ; for these lagunas, though five miles broad, a 
space enough in a storm to sink a gondola, are so shallow 
that the boatmen drive the boat along with a pole. The 
[60] 



THE YEAR 1818 

sea-water, furiously agitated by the wind, shone with 
sparkles like stars. Venice, now hidden and now disclosed 
by the driving rain, shone dimly with its lights. We 
were all this while safe and comfortable. Well, adieu, 
dearest : I shall, as Miss Byron says,^ resume the pen in 
the evening. 

Sunday Night, 5 o^ clock in the Morning. 
Well, I will try to relate everything in its order. 

At three o^clock I called on Lord Byron : he was delighted 
to see me. 

He took me in his gondola across the laguna to a long 
sandy island, which defends Venice from the Adriatic. 
When we disembarked, we found his horses waiting for us, 
and we rode along the sands of the sea, talking. Our 
conversation consisted in histories of his wounded feelings, 
and questions as to my affairs, and great professions of 
friendship and regard for me. He said, that if he had 
been in England at the time of the Chancery ^ affair, he 
would have moved heaven and earth to have prevented 
such a decision. We talked of literary matters, his 
Fourth Canto,^ which, he says, is very good, and indeed 
repeated some stanzas of great energy to me. 

1 i.e., Harriet Byron, in Ricliardson's novel of " Sir Charles Grandi- 
son." — Ed. 

2 An allusion to the decision of Chancellor Eldon whereby Shelley's two 
children by his first marriage were denied to him and placed under the care 
of their maternal grandfather. 

8 Of "Childe Harold." 

[61] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

EsTE, October 8, 1818. 

We left the Baths of Lucca, I think, the day after I 
wrote to you — on a visit to Yenice — partly for the sake 
of seeing the city. ... I saw Lord Byron, and really 
hardly knew him again ; he is changed into the liveliest 
and happiest-looking man I ever met. He read me the 
first canto of his '' Don Juan " — a thing in the style of 
Beppo, but infinitely better, and dedicated to Sbuthey, in 
ten or a dozen stanzas, more like a mixture of wormwood 
and verdigris than satire. Yenice is a wonderfully fine 
city. The approach to it over the laguna, with its domes 
and turrets glittering in a long line over the blue waves, is 
one of the finest architectural delusions in the world. It 
seems to have — and literally it has — its foundations in the 
sea. The silent streets are paved with water, and you hear 
nothing but the dashing of the oars, and the occasional 
cries of the gondolieri. I heard nothing of Tasso. The 
gondolas themselves are things of a most romantic and 
picturesque appearance ; I can only compare them to moths 
of which a coffin might have been the chrysalis. They are 
hung with black, and painted black, and carpeted with 
grey ; they curl at the prow and stern, and at the former 
there is a nondescript beak of shining steel, which glitters 
at the end of its long black mass. 

The Doge's palace, with its library, is a fine monument 
of aristocratic power. I saw the dungeons, where these 
scoundrels used to torment their victims. They are of 
three kinds — one adjoining the place of trial, where the 
prisoners destined to immediate execution were kept. I 
[62] 



QT. CECILIA by Raphael. 



" You forget that it is a picture as you look at it ; and yet 
it is most unlike any of those things lohich ive call reality/" 

— Letter from Bologua, p. 64. 



THE YEAR 1818 

could not descend into them, because the day on which I 
visited it was festa. Another under the leads of the pal- 
ace,, where the sufferers were roasted to death or madness 
by the ardours of an Italian sun : and others called the 
Pozzi — or wells, deep underneath, and communicating 
with those on the roof by secret passages — where the 
prisoners were confined sometimes half up to their middles 
in stinking water. When the Prench came here, they 
found only one old man in the dungeons, and he could not 
speak. But Venice, which was once a tyrant, is now the 
next worse thing, a slave ; for in fact it ceased to be free, 
or worth our regret as a nation, from the moment that the 
oligarchy usurped the rights of the people. Yet, I do not 
imagine that it was ever so degraded as it has been since the 
Prench, and especially the Austrian yoke. The Austrians 
take sixty per cent, in taxes, and impose free quarters on 
the inhabitants. A horde of German soldiers, as vicious 
and more disgusting than the Venetians themselves, insult 
these miserable people. I had no conception of the excess 
to which avarice, cowardice, superstition, ignorance, pas- 
sionless lust, and all the inexpressible brutalities which de- 
grade human nature, could be carried, until I had passed a 
few days at Venice. 

We have been living this last month near the little town 
from which I date this letter, in a very pleasant villa which 
has been lent to us, and we are now on the point of pro- 
ceeding to Plorence, Rome, and Naples — at which last 
city we shall spend the winter, and return northwards in 
the spring. Behind us here are the Euganean hills, not so 
beautiful as those of the Bagni di Lucca, with Arqua, 
[63] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

where Petrarch^s house and tomb are religiously preserved 
and visited. At the end of our garden is an extensive 
Gothic castle^ now the habitation of owls and bats_, where 
the Medici family resided before they came to Plorence. 
We see before us the wide flat plains of Lombardy, in 
which we see the sun and moon rise and set, and the eve- 
ning star, and all the golden magnificence of autumnal 
clouds. But I reserve wonder for Naples. 

I have been writing — and indeed have just finished — 
the first act of a lyric and classical drama, to be called 
"Prometheus Unbound." Will you tell me what there 
is in Cicero about a drama supposed to have been written 
by -^schylus under this title? 

Bologna, Monday, Nov. 9, 1818. 

I have seen a quantity of things here — churches, 
palaces, statues, fountains, and pictures; and my brain 
is at this moment like a portfolio of an architect, or a 
print-shop, or a common-place book. I will try to re- 
collect something of what I have seen; for, indeed, it 
requires, if it will obey, an act of volition. Pirst, we went 
to the cathedral, which contains nothing remarkable, except 
a kind of shrine, or rather a marble canopy, loaded with 
sculptures, and supported on four marble columns. We 
went then to a palace — I am sure I forget the name of it 
— where we saw a large gallery of pictures. Of course, 
in a picture gallery you see three hundred pictures you 
forget, for one you remember. 

• • • • • • 

We saw besides one picture of Eaphael — St. Cecilia : 
this is in another and higher style ; you forgot that it is 
[64] 



THE YEAR 1818 

a picture as you look at it ; and yet it is most unlike any 
of those things which we call reality. It is of the inspired 
and ideal kind, and seems to have been conceived and 
executed in a similar state of feeling to that which pro- 
duced among the ancients those perfect specimens of poetry 
and sculpture which are the baffling models of succeeding 
generations. There is a unity and a perfection in it of an 
incommunicable kind. The central figure, St. Cecilia, seems 
rapt in such inspiration as producJ her image in the 
painter's mind ; her deep, dark, eloquent eyes lifted up ; 
her chestnut hair flung back from her forehead — she holds 
an organ in her hands — her countenance, as it were, 
calmed by the depth of its passion and rapture, and pene- 
trated throughout with tlie warm and radiant light of life. 
She is listening to the music of heaven, and, as I imagine, 
has just ceased to sing, for the four figures that surround 
her evidently point, by their attitudes, towards her ; par- 
ticularly St. John, who, with a tender yet impassioned 
gesture, bends his countenance towards her, languid with 
the depth of his emotion. At her feet lie various instru- 
ments of music, broken and unstrung. Of the colouring 
I do not speak ; it eclipses nature, yet it has all her truth 
and softness. 

We saw some pictures of Domenichino, Carracci, Albano, 
Guercino, Elisabetta Sirani. The two former, remember, 
I do not pretend to taste — I cannot admire. Of the lat- 
ter there are some beautiful Madonnas. There are several 
of Guercino, which they said were very fine. I dare say 
they were, for the strength and complication of his figures 
made my head turn round. One, indeed, was certainly 
5 [65] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

powerful. It was the representation of the founder of the 
Carthusians exercising his austerities in the desert, with a 
youth as his attendant;, kneeling beside him at an altar : on 
another altar stood a skull and a crucifix ; and around were 
the rocks and the trees of the wilderness. I never saw 
such a figure as this fellow. His face was wrinkled like a 
dried snake's skin, and drawn in long hard lines : his very 
hands were wrinkled. He looked like an animated mummy. 
He was clothed in a loose dress of death-coloured flannel, 
such as you might fancy a shroud might be, after it had 
wrapt a corpse a month or two. It had a yellow, putrefied, 
ghastly hue, which it cast on all the objects around, so that 
the hands and face of the Carthusian and his companion 
were jaundiced by this sepulchral glimmer. Why write 
books against religion, when we may hang up such 
pictures ? But the world either will not or cannot see. 
The gloomy effect of this was softened, and, at the same 
time, its sublimity diminished, by the figure of the Virgin 
and Child in the sky, looking down with admiration on the 
monk, and a beautiful flying figure of an angel. . . . 

I have just returned from a moonlight walk through 
Bologna. It is a city of colonnades, and the effect of 
moonlight is strikingly picturesque. There are two towers 
here — one four hundred feet high — ugly things built of 
brick, which lean both different ways ; and with the 
delusion of moonlight shadows, you might almost fancy 
that the city is rocked by an earthquake. They say they 
were built so on purpose ; but I observe in all the plain of 
Lombardy the church towers lean. 

[66] 



rpHE Virgin appearing to Saint Bruno. 
By Guercino. In Bologna Gallery. 




See Letter from Bologna, p. CG. 



THE YEAR 1818 

Rome, November 20, 1818. 
• ••••• 

I take advantage of this rainy evening, and before Eome 
has effaced all other recollections, to endeavour to recall 
the vanished scenes through which we have passed. We 
left Bologna, I forget on what day, and passing by Rimini, 
Fano, and Foligno, along the Yia Flaminia and Terni, 
have arrived at Eome after ten days' somewhat tedious, 
but most interesting, journey. The most remarkable 
things we saw were the Eoman excavations in the rock, 
and the great waterfall of Terni. Of course you have 
heard that there are a Eoman bridge and a triumphal arch 
at Eimini, and in what excellent taste they are built. The 
bridge is not unlike the Strand bridge, but more bold in 
proportion, and of course infinitely smaller. From Fano 
we left the coast of the Adriatic, and entered the Apen- 
nines, following the course of the Metaurus, the banks of 
which were the scene of defeat of Asdrubal : and it is said 
(you can refer to the book) that Livy has given a very 
exact and animated description of it. I forget all about 
it, but shall look as soon as our boxes are opened. Fol- 
lowing the river, the vale contracts, the banks of the river 
become steep and rocky, the forests of oak and ilex which 
overhang its emerald-coloured stream, cling to their abrupt 
precipices. About four miles from Fossombrone, the 
river forces for itself a passage between the walls and top- 
pling precipices of the loftiest Apennines, which are here 
rifted to their base, and undermined by the narrow and 
tumultuous torrent. It was a cloudy morning, and we 
had no conception of the scene that awaited us. Suddenly 
[67] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

the low clouds were struck by the clear north wind, and 
like curtains of the finest gauze, removed one by one, 
were drawn from before the mountain, whose heaven- 
cleaving pinnacles and black crags overhanging one an- 
other, stood at length defined in the light of day. The 
road runs parallel to the river, at a considerable height, 
and is carried through the mountain by a vaulted cavern. 
The marks of the chisel of the legionaries of the Eoman 
Consul are yet evident. 

We passed on day after day, until we came to Spoleto, 
I think the most romantic city I ever saw. There is here 
an aqueduct of astonishing elevation, which unites two 
rocky mountains, — there is the path of a torrent below, 
whitening the green dell with its broad and barren track 
of stones, and above there is a castle, apparently of great 
strength and of tremendous magnitude, which overhangs 
the city, and whose marble bastions are perpendicular with 
the precipice. I never saw a more impressive picture; in 
which the shapes of nature are of the grandest order, but 
over which the creations of man, sublime from their an- 
tiquity and greatness, seem to predominate. The castle 
was built by Belisarius or Narses, I forget which, but was 
of that epoch. 

From Spoleto we went to Terni, and saw the cataract 
of the Velino. The glaciers of Montanvert and the source 
of the Arveiron is the grandest spectacle I ever saw. 
This is the second. Imagine a river sixty feet in breadth, 
with a vast volume of waters, the outlet of a great lake 
among the higher mountains, falling 300 feet into a sight- 
less gulf of snow-white vapour, which bursts up for ever 
[68] 



w 



.\TERFALL at Terni. 



0m 




See Letter from Rome, p. G8. 



THE YEAR 1818 

and for ever from a circle of black crags, and thence leap- 
ing downwards,, makes five or six other cataracts, each 
fifty or a hundred feet high, which exhibit, on a smaller 
scale, and with beautiful and sublime variety, the same 
appearances. But words — and far less could painting — 
will not express it. Stand upon the brink of the platform 
of cliff, which is directly opposite. You see the ever- 
moving water stream down. It comes in thick and tawny 
folds, flaking off like solid snow gliding down a mountain. 
It does not seem hollow within, but without it is unequal, 
like the folding of linen thrown carelessly down ; your eye 
follows it, and it is lost below ; not in the black rocks 
which gird it around, but in its own foam and spray, in 
the cloud-like vapours boiling up from below, which is 
not like rain, nor mist, nor spray, nor foam, but water, in 
a shape wholly unlike anything I ever saw before. It is 
as white as snow, but thick and impenetrable to the eye. 
The very imagination is bewildered in it. A thunder 
comes up from the abyss wonderful to hear ; for, though 
it ever sounds, it is never the same, but, modulated by the 
changing motion, rises and falls intermittingly ; we passed 
half an hour in one spot looking at it, and thought but a 
few minutes had gone by. The surrounding scenery is, in 
its kind, the loveliest and most sublime that can be con- 
ceived. In our first walk we passed through some olive 
groves, of large and ancient trees, whose hoary and twisted 
trunks leaned in all directions. We then crossed a path 
of orange trees by the river side, laden with their golden 
fruit, and came to a forest of ilex of a large size, whose 
evergreen and acorn-bearing boughs were intertwined over 
[69] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

our winding path. Around, hemming in the narrow vale, 
were pinnacles of lofty mountains of pyramidical rock 
clothed with all evergreen plants and trees; the vast pine 
whose feathery foliage trembled in the blue air, the ilex, 
that ancestral inhabitant of these mountains, the arbutus 
with its crimson-coloured fruit and glittering leaves. 
After an hour's walk, we came beneath the cataract of 
Terni, within the distance of half a mile ; nearer you can- 
not approach, for the Nar, which has here its confluence 
with the Velino, bars the passage. We then crossed the 
river formed by this confluence, over a narrow natural 
bridge of rock, and saw the cataract from the platform I 
first mentioned. We think of spending some time next 
year near this waterfall. The inn is very bad, or we 
should have stayed there longer. 

We came from Terni last night to a place called Nepi, 
and to-day arrived at Eome across the much-belied Cam- 
pagna di Roma, a place I confess infinitely to my taste. 
It is a flattering picture of Bagshot Heath. But then 
there are the Apennines on one side, and Eome and St. 
Peter's on the other, and it is intersected by perpetual dells 
clothed with arbutus and ilex. 

Naples, December 22, 1818. 

Since I last wrote to you, I have seen the ruins of 
Rome, the Yatican, St. Peter's, and all the miracles of 
ancient and modern art contained in that majestic city. 
The impression of it exceeds anything I have ever experi- 
enced in my travels. We stayed there only a week, intend- 
ing to return at the end of February, and devote two or 
[70] 



THE YEAR 1818 

three months to its mines of inexhaustible contemplation, 
to which period I refer you for a minute account of it. 
We visited the Forum and the ruins of the Coliseum every 
day. The Coliseum is unlike any work of human hands I 
ever saw before. It is of enormous height and circuit, 
and the arches built of massy stones are piled on one 
another, and jut into the blue air, shattered into the forms 
of overhanging rocks. It has been changed by time into 
the image of an amphitheatre of rocky hills overgrown by 
the wild olive, the myrtle, and the fig-tree, and threaded 
by little paths, which wind among its ruined stairs and 
immeasurable galleries : the copse-wood overshadows you 
as you wander through its labyrinths, and the wild weeds 
of this climate of flowers bloom under your feet. The 
arena is covered with grass, and pierces, like the skirts of 
a natural plain, the chasms of the broken arches around. 
But a small part of the exterior circumference remains — 
it is exquisitely light and beautiful; and the effect of the 
perfection of its architecture, adorned with ranges of 
Corinthian pilasters, supporting a bold cornice, is such as 
to diminish the effect of its greatness. The interior is all 
ruin. I can scarcely believe that when encrusted with 
Dorian marble and ornamented by columns of Egyptian 
granite its effect could have been so sublime and so im- 
pressive as in its present state. It is open to the sky, and 
it was the clear and sunny weather of the end of November 
in this climate when we visited it, day after day. 

Near it is the Arch of Constantine, or rather the Arch of 
Trajan ; for the servile and avaricious senate of degraded 
Eome ordered that the monument of his predecessor should 

[71] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

be demolished in order to dedicate one to the Christian 
reptile, who had crept among the blood of his murdered 
family to the supreme power. It is exquisitely beautiful 
and perfect. The Eorum is a plain in the midst of Eome, 
a kind of desert full of heaps of stones and pits, and though 
so near the habitations of men, is the most desolate place 
you can conceive. The ruins of temples stand in and 
around it, shattered columns and ranges of others com- 
plete, supporting cornices of exquisite workmanship, and 
vast vaults of shattered domes distinct with regular com- 
partments, once filled with sculptures of ivory or brass. 
The temples of Jupiter, and Concord, and Peace, and the 
Sun, and the Moon, and Yesta, are all within a short dis- 
tance of this spot. Behold the wrecks of what a great 
nation once dedicated to the abstractions of the mind ! 
Eome is a city, as it were, of the dead, or rather of those 
who cannot die, and who survive the puny generations 
which inhabit and pass over the spot which they have made 
sacred to eternity. In Eome, at least in the first enthusi- 
asm of your recognition of ancient time, you see nothing 
of the Italians. The nature of the city assists the delusion, 
for its vast and antique walls describe a circumference of 
sixteen miles, and thus the population is thinly scattered 
over this space, nearly as great as London. Wide wild 
fields are enclosed within it, and there are grassy lanes and 
copses winding among the ruins, and a great green hill, 
lonely and bare, which overhangs the Tiber. The gardens 
of the modern palaces are like wild woods of cedar, and 
cypress, and pine, and the neglected walks are overgrown 
with weeds. The English burying-place is a green slope 
[72] 



THE YEAR 1818 

near the walls, under the pyramidal tomb of Cestius, and 
is, I think, the most beautiful and solemn cemetery I ever 
beheld. To see the sun shining on its bright grass, fresh, 
when we first visited it, with the autumnal dews, and hear 
the whispering of the wind among the leaves of the trees 
which have overgrown the tomb of Cestius, and the soil 
which is stirring in the sun- warm earth, and to mark the 
tombs, mostly of women and young people who were buried 
there, one might, if one were to die, desire the sleep they 
seem to sleep. Such is the human mind, and so it peoples 
with its wishes vacancy and oblivion. 

STANZAS 

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES 
I 

The sun is warm, the sky is clear. 

The waves are dancing fast and bright. 

Blue isles and snowy mountains wear 
The purple noon^s transparent might. 
The breath of the moist earth is light, 

Around its unexpanded buds ; 
Like many a voice of one delight. 

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods. 
The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's. 

II 
I see the Deep's untrampled floor 

With green and purple seaweeds strewn ; 
I see the waves upon the shore. 

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown : 
[73] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

I sit upon the sands alone. 
The lightning of the noontide ocean 

Is flashing round me, and a tone 
Arises from its measured motion. 
How sweet ! did any heart now share in my emotion. 

Ill 

Alas ! I have nor hope nor health, 
Nor peace within nor calm around. 

Nor that content surpassing wealth 
The sage in meditation found. 
And walked with inward glory crowned — 

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. 
Others I see whom these surround — 

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure ; — 
To me that cup has been dealt in another measure. 



IV 

Yet now despair itself is mild, 

Even as the winds and waters are; 

I could lie down like a tired child. 
And weep away the life of care 
Which I have borne and yet must bear, 

Till death like sleep might steal on me. 
And I might feel in the warm air 

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea 
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony. 

[74] 



THE YEAR 1818 

V 

Some might lament that I were cold. 
As I, when this sweet day is goue^ 
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old, 
Lisults with this untimely moan ; 
They might lament — for I am one 
Whom men love not, — and yet regret. 
Unlike this day, which, when the sun 
Shall on its stainless glory set. 
Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory yet. 
December, 1818. 

Naples, December 22, 1818. 

External nature in these delightful regions contrasts 
with and compensates for the deformity and degradation of 
humanity. We have a lodging divided from the sea by 
the royal gardens, and from our windows we see perpetually 
the blue waters of the bay, forever changing, yet forever 
the same, and encompassed by the mountainous island of 
Caprese, the lofty peaks which overhang Salerno, and the 
woody hill of Posilipo, whose promontories hide from us 
Misenum and the lofty isle Inarime,^ which, with its 
divided summit, forms the opposite horn of the bay. From 
the pleasant walks of the garden we see Vesuvius ; a smoke 
by day and a fire by night is seen upon its summit, and the 
glassy sea often reflects its light or shadow. The climate 
is delicious. We sit without a fire, with the windows 
open, and have almost all the productions of an English 
summer. The weather is usually like what Wordsworth 

* The ancient name of Ischia. — [Note by Mrs. Shelley.] 

[75] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

calls ^' the first fine day of March " ; sometimes very much 
warmer, though perhaps it wants that ^^ each minute 
sweeter than before/^ which gives an intoxicating sweetness 
to the awakening of the earth from its Winter^s sleep in 
England. We have made two excursions, one to Baise and 
one to Vesuvius, and we propose to visit, successively, the 
islands, Psestum, Pompeii, and Beneventum. 

We set off an hour after sunrise one radiant morning in 
a little boat ; there was not a cloud in the sky, nor a wave 
upon the sea, which was so translucent that you could 
see the hollo vv caverns clothed with the glaucous sea-moss, 
and the leaves and branches of those delicate weeds that pave 
the unequal bottom of the water. As noon approached, 
the heat, and especially the light, became intense. We 
passed Posilipo,and came first to the eastern point of the 
Bay of Pozzuoli, which is within the great Bay of Naples, 
and which again encloses that of Baise. Here are lofty 
rocks and craggy islets, with arches and portals of precipice 
standing in the sea, and enormous caverns, which echoed 
faintly with the murmur of the languid tide. This is 
called La Scuola di Virgilio. We then went directly 
across to the promontory of Misenum, leaving the pre- 
cipitous island of Nisida on the right. Here we were con- 
ducted to see the Mare Morto, and the Elysian fields ; the 
spot on which Virgil places the scenery of the Sixth 
iEneid. Though extremely beautiful, as a lake, and woody 
hills, and this divine sky must make it, I confess my dis- 
appointment. The guide showed us an antique cemetery, 
where the niches used for placing the cinerary urns of the 
dead yet remain. We then coasted the Bay of Baise to the 
[76] 



THE YEAR 1818 

left, in which we saw many picturesque and interesting 
ruins ; but I have to remark that we never disembarked 
but we were disappointed — while from the boat the effect 
of the scenery was inexpressibly delightful. The colours of 
the water and the air breathe over all things here the radi- 
ance of their own beauty. After passing the bay of Baise, 
and observing the ruins of its antique grandeur standing 
like rocks in the transparent sea under our boat, we landed 
to visit Lake Avernus. We passed through the cavern of 
the Sibyl (not VirgiFs Sibyl), which pierces one of the hills 
which circumscribe the lake, and came to a calm and lovely 
basin of water, surrounded by dark woody hills, and pro- 
foundly solitary. Some vast ruhis of the temple of Pluto 
stand on a lawny hill on one side of it, and are reflected in 
its windless mirror. It is far more beautiful than the Ely- 
sian fields — but there are all the materials for beauty in the 
latter, and the Avernus was once a chasm of deadly and pes- 
tilential vapours. About half a mile from Avernus, a high 
hill, called Monte Nuovo, was thrown up by volcanic fire. 
Passing onward we came to Pozzuoli, the ancient 
Dicsearchea, where there are the columns remaining of a 
temple to Serapis, and the wreck of an enormous amphi- 
theatre, changed, like the Coliseum, into a natural hill by 
the overteeming vegetation. Here also is the Solfatara, 
of which there is a poetical description in the Civil War of 
Petronius, beginning — " Est locus,^' ^ and in which the 

1 Est locus exciso penitus demersus hiatu, 
Parthenopem inter, magnseque Dicarchidos arva, 
Cocytia perfusus aqua, nam spiritus, extra 
Qui furit, effusus fanesto spargitur aestu, &c. 

Peteonii Aebitki Satyricon, 

[ "77 1 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

verses of the poet are infinitely finer than what he describes, 
for it is not a very curious place. After seeing these things 
we returned by moonhght to Naples in our boat. What 
colours there were in the sky, what radiance in the evening 
star, and how the moon was encompassed by a light 
unknown to our regions ! 

Our next excursion was to Vesuvius. We went to 
Eesina in a carriage, where Mary and I mounted mules, 

and C was carried in a chair on the shoulders of four 

men, much like a member of parliament after he has gained 
his election, and looking, with less reason, quite as 
frightened. So we arrived at the hermitage of San Sal- 
vador, where an old hermit, belted with rope, set forth the 
plates for our refreshment. 

Vesuvius is, after the glaciers, the most impressive ex- 
hibition of the energies of nature I ever saw. It has not 
the immeasurable greatness, the overpowering magnifi- 
cence, nor, above all, the radiant beauty of the glaciers ; but 
it has all their character of tremendous and irresistible 
strength. Erom Resina to the hermitage you wind up the 
mountain, and cross a vast stream of hardened lava, which 
is an actual image of the waves of the sea, changed into 
hard black stone by enchantment. The lines of the boil- 
ing flood seem to hang in the air, and it is difficult to be- 
lieve that the billows which seem hurrying down upon you 
are not actually in motion. This plain was once a sea of 
liquid fire. Prom the hermitage we crossed another vast 
stream of lava, and then went on foot up the cone — this 
is the only part of the ascent in which there is any diffi- 
culty, and that difficulty has been much exaggerated. It 
[78] 




Ul 



THE YEAR 1818 

is composed of rocks of lava, and declivities of ashes ; by 
ascending the former and descending the latter, there is 
very little fatigue. On the summit is a kind of irregular 
plain,, the most horrible chaos that can be imagined ; riven 
into ghastly chasms, and heaped up with tumuli of great 
stones and cinders, and enormous rocks blackened and 
calcined, which had been thrown from the volcano upon 
one another in terrible confusion. In the midst stands 
the conical hill from which volumes of smoke, and the 
fountains of liquid fire, are rolled forth forever. The 
mountain is at present in a slight state of eruption ; and 
a thick heavy white smoke is perpetually rolled out, 
interrupted by enormous columns of an impenetrable black 
bituminous vapour, which is hurled up, fold after fold, into 
the sky with a deep hollow sound, and fiery stones are 
rained down from its darkness, and a black shower of ashes 
fell even where we sat. The lava, like the glacier, creeps 
on perpetually, with a crackling sound as of suppressed fire. 
There are several springs of lava; and in one place it 
gushes precipitously over a high crag, rolling down the 
half-molten rocks and its own overhanging waves; a 
cataract of quivering fire. We approached the extremity 
of one of the rivers of lava; it is about twenty feet in 
breadth and ten in height ; and as the inclined plane was 
not rapid, its motion was very slow. We saw the masses 
of its dark exterior surface detach themselves as it moved, 
and betray the depth of the liquid flame. In the day the 
fire is but slightly seen; you only observe a tremulous 
motion in the air, and . streams and fountains of white 
sulphurous smoke. 

[79] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

At length we saw the sun sink between Capreae and 
Inarime, and, as the darkness increased, the effect of the 
fire became more beautiful. We were, as it were, sur- 
rounded by streams and cataracts of the red and radiant 
fire; and in the midst, from the column of bituminous 
smoke shot up into the air, fell the vast masses of rock, 
white with the light of their intense heat, leaving behind 
them through the dark vapour trains of splendour. We 
descended by torch-light, and I should have enjoyed the 
scenery on my return, but they conducted me, I know not 
how, to the hermitage in a state of intense bodily suffering, 
the worst effect of which was spoiling the pleasure of Mary 

and C . Our guides on the occasion were complete 

savages. You have no idea of the horrible cries which 
they suddenly utter, no one knows why, the clamour, the 

vociferation, the tumult. C in her palanquin suffered 

most from it; and when I had gone on before, they 
threatened to leave her in the middle of the road, which 
they would have done had not my Italian servant promised 
them a beating, after which they became quiet. Nothing, 
however, can be more picturesque than the gestures and 
the physiognomies of these savage people. And when, in 
the darkness of night, they unexpectedly begin to sing in 
chorus some fragments of their wild but sweet national 
music, the effect is exceedingly fine. 

Naples, February 25, 1819. 

There was a Greek city, sixty miles to the south of 
Naples called Posidonia, now Pesto,^ where still subsist 

1 Pesto in Italian, Paestum in English. — Ed. 

[80] 



^v.r 




THE YEAR 1818 

three temples of Etruscan ^ architecture, one almost per- 
fect. From this city we have just returned. The weather 
was most unfavourable for our expedition. After two 
months of cloudless serenity, it began raining cats and 
dogs. The first night we slept at Salerno, a large city 
situated in the recess of a deep bay; surrounded with 
stupendous mountains of the same name. A few miles 
from Torre del Greco we entered on the pass of the 
mountains, which is a line dividing the isthmus of those 
enormous piles of rock which compose the southern boun- 
dary of the Bay of Naples and the northern one of that of 
Salerno. On one side is a lofty conical hill, crowned with 
the turrets of a ruined castle, and cut into platforms for 
cultivation ; at least every ravine and glen, whose precipi- 
tous sides admitted of other vegetation than that of the 
rock-rooted ilex; on the other, the sethereal snowy crags 
of an immense mountain, whose terrible lineaments were 
at intervals concealed or disclosed by volumes of dense 
clouds, rolling under the tempest. Half a mile from this 
spot, between orange and lemon groves of a lovely village, 
suspended as it were on an amphitheatral precipice, whose 
golden globes contrasted with the white walls and dark 
green leaves which they almost outnumbered, shone the 
sea. A burst of the declining sunlight illumined it. The 
road led along the brink of the precipice towards Salerno. 
Nothing could be more glorious than the scene. The 
immense mountains covered with the rare and divine vege- 
tation of this climate, with many-folding vales, and deep 
dark recesses, which the fancy scarcely could penetrate, 

1 Doric, not Etruscan axcliitecture. — Ed. 
6 [81] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

descended from their snowy summits precipitously to the 
sea. Before us was Salerno, built into a declining plain, 
between the mountains and the sea. Beyond, the other 
shore of sky-cleaving mountains, then dim with the mist 
of tempest. Underneath, from the base of the precipice 
where the road conducted, rocky promontories jutted into 
the sea, covered with olive and ilex woods, or with the 
ruined battlements of some Norman or Saracen fortress. 
We slept at Salerno, and the next morning before day- 
break proceeded to Posidonia. The night had been tem- 
pestuous, and our way lay by the sea sand. It was utterly 
dark, except when the long line of wave burst, with a 
sound like thunder, beneath the starless sky, and cast up 
a kind of mist of cold white lustre. When morning came, 
we found ourselves travelling in a wide desert plain, per- 
petually interrupted by wild irregular glens, and bounded 
on all sides by the Apennines and the sea. Sometimes 
it was covered with forest, sometimes dotted with under- 
wood, or mere tufts of fern and furze, and the wintry dry 
tendrils of creeping plants. I have never, but in the 
Alps, seen an amphitheatre of mountains so magnificent. 
After travelling fifteen miles we came to a river, the bridge 
of which had been broken, and which was so swollen that 
the ferry would not take the carriage across. We had, 
therefore, to walk seven miles of a muddy road, which 
led to the ancient city across the desolate Maremma. 
The air was scented with the sweet smell of violets of an 
extraordinary size and beauty. , At length we saw the 
sublime and massy colonnades, skirting the horizon of the 
wilderness. We entered by the ancient gate, which is 
[82] 



c 



ITY and Bay 

of Salerno. 





" Before tis vxis Salerno, huUt into a decUning plain hetioeen 
the mountains and the sea. Beyond, the other shore of sky- 
cleaving mountains, then dim with the mist of tempest."" 

— Letter from Naples, p. 82. 



THE YEAR 1818 

now no more than a chasm in the rock-like wall. Deeply 
sunk in the ground beside it, were the ruins of a sepulchre, 
which the ancients were in the custom of building beside 
the public way. The first temple, which is the smallest, 
consists of an outer range of columns, quite perfect, and 
supporting perfect architrave and two shattered frontis- 
pieces. The proportions are extremely massy, and the 
architecture entirely unornamented and simple. These 
columns do not seem more than forty feet high,^ but the 
perfect proportions diminish the apprehension of their 
magnitude ; it seems as if inequality and irregularity of 
form were requisite to force on us the relative idea of 
greatness. The scene from between the columns of the 
temple*'^ consists on one side of the sea, to which the 
gentle hill on which it is built slopes, and on the other, of 
the grand amphitheatre of the loftiest Apennines, dark 
purple mountains, crowned with snow and intercepted 
there by long bars of hard and leaden-coloured cloud. 
The effect of the jagged outline of mountains, through 
groups of enormous columns on one side, and on the other 
the level horizon of the sea, is inexpressibly grand. The 
second temple^ is much larger, and also more perfect. 
Beside the outer range of columns, it contains an in- 
terior range of column above column, and the ruins 
of a wall which was the screen of the penetralia. With 
little diversity of ornament, the order of architecture 
is similar to that of the first temple. The columns in all 

^ The columns of the Temple of Neptune are 29 feet -, of Basilica, 21 
feet 6 in. high. 

2 Known as Temple of Ceres. 
* Known as Temple of Neptune. 

[ 83 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

are fluted and biiilt of a porous volcanic stone which time 
has dyed with a rich and yellow colour. The columns are 
one-third larger, and like that of the first,, diminish from 
the base to the capital, so that, but for the chastening 
effect of their admirable proportions, their magnitude 
would, from the delusion of perspective, seem greater, not 
less, than it is ; though perhaps we ought to say not that 
this symmetry diminishes your apprehension of their mag- 
nitude, but that it overpowers the idea of relative great- 
ness, by establishing within itself a system of relations 
destructive of your idea of its relation with other objects 
on which our ideas of size depend. The third temple is 
what they call a Basilica; three columns alone remain of 
the interior range; the exterior is perfect, but that the 
cornice and frieze in many places have fallen. This 
temple covers more ground than either of the others, but 
its columns are of an intermediate magnitude between 
those of the second and the first. 

We only contemplated these sublime monuments for 
two hours, and of course could only bring away so imper- 
fect a conception of them as is the shadow of some half- 
remembered dream. 



[84] 



THE YEAR 1819 



H 



5 Hi. 












«3 



5c 9 

54 » 



3 I 
i'l- 

g a- 

I- i. 
I'l 







THE YEAR 1819 

ROME; LEGHORN; FLORENCE 

INTRODUCTORY 

^^^^0 realize the importance of this year, not only in 
i the life of Shelley, hut in the history of English 
poetry, we have only to note that it produced ''Pro- 
metheus Unhound^^ the most radiant of all Utopian 
visions ; " The Cejici,'''' the greatest of the tragedies since 
Shakespeare; the ''Ode to the West Wind,'''' perhaps the 
most perfect of English lyrics. That these three poems^ 
each among its ozvn kind taking a supreme place, should 
have been prodicced by one man and in a single year of 
his life is one of the marvels of literary biography. The 
world at the moment was quite unheeding ; but more and 
more as the years pass it is coming to see how many- 
s'lded a poet Shelley really is, how supreme his gift of 
expression when strongly moved. 

He was a social reformer by instinct, a champion for 
equal opportunities for cdl men and all women, a "poet 
of democracy^'' before that catching phrase came into 
being. He foresaw the struggle between classes, and sent 
poems to England which Ms friends did not daix to print. 
The news of the Manchester Massacre reaching him in 
the solitude of his villa near Leghorn, and in the midst 
of the composition of " The Ccnci,''' he seizes his pen to 
[87] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

write a poem for the people and to apostrophize freedom, 
proclaiming that it is not, 

" ... as impostors say, 
A shadow soon to pass away^ 
A superstition and a name 
Echoing from the cave of Fame. 
For the labourer thou art breads 
And a comely table spread* 

Science^ Poetry and Thought 
Are thy lamps ; they make the lot 
Of the dwellers in a cot 
So serene, they curse it not.'' 

An ambition to help along the good time coming had 
inspired his early poems " Queen Mab "" and " Revolt of 
I slam ^"^ hut the boyish mind, the crude art had been un- 
equal to the task it set for itself. Now, though still 
young in years, having '' learned in suffering'''' he could 
" teach in song,'''' and turning once more to his favorite 
theme, he gives utterance to his convictions in " Prome- 
theus Unbound*^ with a poetic art which is now fully 
mated to the hfty ideal. The subject is the redemption 
of humanity, personified in the character of Prometheus 
— a redemption accomplished not only through the up- 
rooting of evil, but through the active force of good. 

The poem was more than a year in process of composi- 
tion, and it grew with the author's growth. Begun at 
Este in the Autumn of 1818, it was resumed the next 
Spring at Rome, where, according to Mrs. Shelley, " the 
charm of the Roman climate helped to clothe his thoughts 
in greater beauty than they had ever worn before,'''' The 
[88] 



THE YEAR 1819 

first three acts were completed and the poem sent to 
England for publication. But before it was in type, it 
occurred to Shelley that it needed yet one more element — 
an expression of the joy of man and the universe over 
the great redemption. Accordingly in the Autumn, at 
Florence, he wrote a fourth act closing with some lines 
that sum up the whole matter and that fairly blaze with 
his ^'enthusiasm of humanity'''' — a phrase wh'ich, origi- 
nating with Shelley, has been adopted as pecidiarly 
expressive of the modem spirit. 

It is not true to say, as so often is said, that the great 
distinction of " Prometheus Unbound " is its exquisite 
imagery and the '' jnirple patches''^ of its songs, — in 
short, that the paHs are greater than the whole. Although 
indeed these alone are feasible in a volume of selections 
like the present, he who reads the poem as a whole will 
discover how great is its spiritual unity, and how both 
form and thought are shaped by the poefs aspiration for 
freedom and universal love among men. 

Siich aspirations inspired not only his earliest, but his 

latest utterances, and perhaps it is on this account that 

Shelley'' s verse has done most good and will be longest 

remembered. Just before his death, he sings in " Hellas " * 

" The world's great age begins anew, 
The golden years return, 
And earth doth like a snake renew 
Her winter weeds outworn ; 
Heaven smiles, a?id faiths and empires gleam 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream'' 

Su£h visions, though vague, help toward the progress 
of humanity and a belief in a divine ordering of the 
[89] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

wniverse hy means of mercy and love. They appeal to 
the minds of ardent youth everywhere^ and we have it 
on the testimony of a distinguished English clergyman ^ 
that " there are more clergymen and more religious lay- 
men than we imagine who trace to the emotion Shelley 
awakened in them when they were youngs their wider and 
better views of God.'''' 



FEAGMENT: 

TO ITALY 

As THE sunrise to the night, 

As the north wind to the clouds, 

As the earthquake's fierj flight, 
Euining mountain solitudes, 

Everlasting Italy, 

Be those hopes and fears on thee. 



FRAGMENT : 

A Romany's chamber 

I 

In the cave which wild weeds cover 
Wait for thine ethereal lover ; 
Eor the pallid moon is waning, 

O'er the spiral cypress hanging 
And the moon no cloud is staining. 

* Stopford A. Brooke. 

[90] 



THE YEAR 1819 

n 

It was once a Eoman^s chamber, 
Where he kept his darkest revels, 

And the wild weeds twine and clamber; 
It was then a chasm for devils. 



PEAGMENT: 

EOME AND NATURE 

EoME has fallen, ye see it lying 

Heaped in undistinguished ruin : 
Nature is alone undying. 

EoME, March 23, 1819. 
From Naples we came by slow journeys, with our own 
horses, to Eome, resting one day at Mola di Gaeta, at the 
inn called Yilla di Cicerone, from being built on the ruins 
of his Yilla, whose immense substructions overhang the sea, 
and are scattered among the orange-groves. Nothing can 
be lovelier than the scene from the terraces of the inn. On 
one side precipitous mountains, whose bases slope into an 
inclined plane of olive and orange-copses — the latter 
forming, as it were, an emerald sky of leaves, starred with 
innumerable globes of their ripening fruit, whose rich 
splendour contrasted with the ^ deep green foliage ; on the 
other the sea — bounded on one side by the antique town of 
Gaeta, and the other by what appears to be an island, the 
promontory of Circe. From Gaeta to Terracina the whole 
scenery is of the most sublime character. At Terracina 

[91] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

precipitous conical crags of immense height shoot into the 
sky and overhang the sea. At Albano we arrived again in 
sight of Eome. Arches after arches in unending lines 
stretching across the uninhabited wilderness^ the blue de- 
fined line of the mountains seen between them ; masses of 
nameless ruin standing like rocks out of the plain ; and the 
plain itself^ with its billowy and unequal surface, announced 
the neighbourhood of Eome. And what shall I say to you 
of Eome? If I speak of the inanimate ruins, the rude 
stones piled upon stones, which are the sepulchres of the 
fame of those who once arrayed them with the beauty 
which has faded, will you believe me insensible to the 
vital, the almost breathing creations of genius yet subsist- 
ing in their perfection ? What has become, you will ask, 
of the Apollo, tlie Gladiator, the Yenus of the Capitol ? 
What of the Apollo di Belvedere, the Laocoon ? What 
of Eafiaelle and Guido ? These things are best spoken of 
when the mind has drunk in the spirit of their forms ; and 
little indeed can I, who must devote no more than a few 
months to the contemplation of them, hope to know or feel 
of their profound beauty. 

I think I told you of the Coliseum, and its impressions 
on me on my first visit to this city. The next most con- 
siderable relic of antiquity, considered as a ruin, is the 
Thermae of Caracalla. These consist of six enormous 
chambers, above 200 feet in height, and each inclosing a 
vast space like that of a field. There are, in addition, a 
number of towers and labyrinthine recesses, hidden and 
woven over by the wild growth of weeds and ivy. Never 
was any desolation more sublime and lovely. The per- 
[92] 



A CORNER of the Foruin 
in Shelley's time. 




*" I loalk forth in the purple and (/olden light of an Italian 
evening, and return hy star or moonlight. . . . I see the radiant 
Orion through the mighty columns of the temple of Saturn, and 
the mellow fading light softens down the modern buildings of 
the capital.'''' 

— Letter from Rome, p. 96. 



THE YEAR 1819 

pendicular wall of ruin is cloven into steep ravines filled up 
with flowering shrubs, whose thick twisted roots are knot- 
ted in the rifts of the stones. At every step the aerial 
pinnacles of shattered stone group into new combinations 
of effect, and tower above the lofty yet level walls, as the 
distant mountains change their aspect to one travelling 
rapidly along the plain. The perpendicular walls resemble 
nothing more than that cliff of Bisham wood, that is over- 
grown with wood, and yet is stony and precipitous — you 
know the one I mean ; not the chalk-pit, but the spot that 
has the pretty copse of fir-trees and privet-bushes at its 
base, and where H "^ "^ and I scrambled up, and you, to 
my infinite discontent, would go home. These walls sur- 
round green and level spaces of lawn, on which some elms 
have grown, and which are interspersed towards their 
skirts by masses of the fallen ruin, overtwined with the 
broad leaves of the creeping weeds. The blue sky canopies 
it, and is as the everlasting roof of these enormous halls. 

But the most interesting effect remains. In one of the 
buttresses, that supports an immense and lofty arch, which 
"bridges the very winds of heaven,^' are the crumbling 
remains of an antique winding staircase, whose sides are 
open in many places to the precipice. This you ascend, 
and arrive on the summit of these piles. There grow on 
every side thick entangled wildernesses of myrtle, and the 
myrletus, and bay, and the flowering laurustinus, whose 
white blossoms are just developed, the wild fig, and a thou- 
sand nameless plants sown by the wandering winds. These 
woods are intersected on every side by paths, like sheep 
tracks through the copse- wood of steep mountains, which 

[93] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

wind to every part of the immense labyrinth. Prom the 
midst rise those pinnacles and masses, themselves like 
mountains, which have been seen from below. In one 
place you wind along a narrow strip of weed-grown ruin ; 
on one side is the immensity of earth and sky, on the other 
a narrow chasm, which is bounded by an arch of enormous 
size, fringed by the many-coloured foliage and blossoms, 
and supporting a lofty and irregular pyramid, overgrown 
like itself with the all-prevailing vegetation. Around rise 
other crags and other peaks, all arrayed, and the deformity 
of their vast desolation softened down, by the undecaying 
investiture of nature. Come to Eome. It is a scene by 
which expression is overpowered ; which words cannot 
convey. Still further, winding up one-half of the shat- 
tered pyramids, by the path through the blooming copse- 
wood, you come to a little mossy lawn, surrounded by the 
wild shrubs ; it is overgrown with anemones, wall-flowers, 
and violets, whose stalks pierce the starry moss, and with 
radiant blue flowers, whose names I know not, and which 
scatter through the air the divinest odour, which, as you 
recline under the shade of the ruin, produces sensations of 
voluptuous faintness, like the combinations of sweet music. 
The paths still wind on, threading the perplexed windings, 
other labyrinths, other lawns, and deep dells of wood, and 
lofty rocks, and terrific chasms. When I tell you that 
these ruins cover several acres, and that the paths above 
penetrate at least half their extent, your imagination will fill 
up all that I am unable to express of this astonishing 
scene. 

I speak of these things not in the order in which I visited 
[94] 



THE YEAR 1819 

them, but in that of the impression which they made on me, 
or perhaps chance directs. The ruins of the ancient Forum 
are so far fortunate that they have not been walled up in 
the modern city. They stand in an open, lonesome place, 
bounded on one side by the m.odern city, and the other by 
the Palatine Mount, covered with shapeless masses of ruin. 
The tourists tell you all about these things, and I am afraid 
of stumbling on their language when I enumerate what is 
so well known. There remain eight granite columns of the 
Ionic order, with their entablature, of the Temple of Con- 
cord,^ founded by Camillus. I fear that the immense ex- 
pense demanded by these columns forbids us to hope that 
they are the remains of any edifice dedicated by that most 
perfect and virtuous of men. It is supposed to have been 
repaired under the Eastern Emperors ; alas, what a con- 
trast of recollections ! Near them stand those Corinthian 
fluted columns, which supported the angle of a temple ; 
the architrave and entablature are worked with delicate 
sculpture. Beyond, to the south, is another solitary 
column ; and still more distant, three more, supporting the 
wreck of an entablature. Descending from the Capitol to 
the Forum, is the triumphal arch of Septimus Severus, less 
perfect than that of Constantine, though from its propor- 
tions and magnitude, a most impressive monument. That 
of Constantine, or rather of Titus ^ (for the relief and 
sculpture, and even the colossal images of Dacian captives, 
were torn by a decree of the senate from an arch dedicated 

1 So-called in Shelley's time. Modern archaeologists agree in calling 
this ruin the Temple of Saturn ; of the Temple of Concord lying on the 
slope of the Capitoline Hill only a few stones remain. — Ed. 

^ Shelley's error ; for Titus read Trajan. 

[95] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

to the latter/ to adorn that of this stupid and wicked mon- 
ster, Constantine, one of whose chief merits consists in 
establishing a religion, the destroyer of those arts which 
would have rendered so base a spoliation unnecessary), is 
the most perfect. It is an admirable work of art. It is 
built of the finest marble, and the outline of the reliefs is 
in many parts as perfect as if just finished. Eour Corin- 
thian fluted columns support, on each side, a bold entabla- 
ture, whose bases are loaded with reliefs of captives in 
every attitude of humiliation and slavery. The compart- 
ments above express in bolder relief the enjoyment of 
success ; the conqueror on his throne, or in his chariot, or 
nodding over the crushed multitudes, who writhe under 
his horses' hoofs, as those below express the torture and 
ubjectness of defeat. There are three arches, whose roofs 
are panelled with fretwork, and their sides adorned with 
similar reliefs. The keystone of these arches is supported 
each by two winged figures of Victory, whose hair floats on 
the wind of their own speed, and whose arms are out- 
stretched, bearing trophies, as if impatient to meet. They 
look, as it were, borne from the subject extremities of the 
earth, on the breath which is the exhalation of that battle 
and desolation, which it is their mission to commemorate. 
Never were monuments so completely fitted to the purpose 
for which they were designed, of expressing that mixture 
of energy and error which is called a triumph. 

I walk forth in the purple and golden light of an 
Italian evening, and return by star or moonlight, through 

^ Torn not from an arch, but from a building of Trajan, at the entrance 
to his Forum. 

[96] 



THE YEAR 1819 

this scene. The elms are just budding, and the warm 
Spring winds bring unknown odours, all sweet, from the 
country. I see the radiant Orion through the mighty 
columns of the Temple of Concord,^ and the mellow fading 
light softens down the modern buildings of the Capitol, 
the only ones that interfere with the sublime desolation of 
the scene. On the steps of the Capitol itself, stand two 
colossal statues of Castor and Pollux, each with his horse, 
finely executed, though far inferior to those of Monte 
Cavallo, the cast of one of which you know we saw to- 
gether in London. Tliis walk is close to our lodging, and 
this is my evening walk. 

What shall I say of the modern city? Eome is yet 
the capital of the world. It is a city of palaces and 
temples, more glorious than those which any other city 
contains, and of ruins more glorious than they. Seen 
from any of the eminences that surround it, it exhibits 
domes beyond domes, and palaces, and colonnades in- 
terminably, even to the horizon ; interspersed with patches 
of desert, and mighty ruins which stand girt by their own 
desolation, in the midst of the fanes of living religions 
and the habitations of living men, m sublime loneliness. 
St. Peter's is, as you have heard, the loftiest building in 
Europe. Externally it is inferior in architectural beauty 
to St. Paul's, though not wholly devoid of it; internally 
it exhibits littleness on a large scale, and is in every 
respect opposed to antique taste. You know my pro- 
pensity to admire ; and I tried to persuade myself out of 
this opinion — in vain ; the more I see of the interior of 

1 Saturn. 

T [97] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

St. Peter's, the less impression as a whole does it produce 
on me. I cannot even think it lofty, though its dome is 
considerably higher than any hill within fifty miles of Lon- 
don; and when one reflects, it is an astonishing monument 
of the daring energy of man. Its colonnade is wonder- 
fully fine, and there are two fountains, which rise in spire- 
like columns of water to an immense heiglit in the sky, 
and falling on the porphyry vases from which they spring, 
fill the whole air with a radiant mist, which at noon is 
thronged with innumerable rainbows. In the midst stands 
an obelisk. In front is the palace-like fagade of St. 
Peter's, certainly magnificent; and there is produced, on 
the whole, an architectural combination unequalled in the 
world. But the dome of the temple is concealed, except 
at a very great distance, by the fagade and the inferior 
part of the building, and that diabolical contrivance they 
call an attic. 

The effect of the Pantheon is totally the reverse of that 
of St. Peter's. Though not a fourth part of the size, it is, 
as it were, the visible image of the universe ; in the per- 
fection of its proportions, as when you regard the unmeas- 
ured dome of heaven, the idea of magnitude is swallowed 
up and lost. It is open to the sky, and its wide dome is 
lighted by the ever-changing illumination of the air. The 
clouds of noon fly over it, and at night the keen stars are 
seen through the azure darkness, hanging immoveably, or 
driving after the driving moon among the clouds. We 
visited it by moonlight ; it is supported by sixteen columns, 
fluted and Corinthian, of a certain rare and beautiful 
yellow marble, exquisitely polished, called here giallo 
[98] 



Arch of Titus. 




Titus croioned by Victory. Sculptured relief inside Arch of Titus. 




Triumphal Procession, a sculptiire on inside Arch of Titus. 

— Shelley's Roman Note-Book, pp. 101, 10'2 



THE YEAR 1819 

antico. Above these are the niches for the statues of the 
twelve gods. This is the only defect of this sublime 
temple; there ought to have been no interval between the 
commencement of the dome and the cornice^ supported by 
the columns. Thus there would have been no diversion from 
the magnificent simplicity of its form. This improvement 
is alone wanting to have completed the unity of the idea. 

The fountains of Eome are, in themselves, magnificent 
combinations of art, such as alone it were worth coming to 
see. That in the Piazza Navona, a large square, is com- 
posed of enormous fragments of rock, piled on each other, 
and penetrated, as by caverns. This mass supports an 
Egyptian obelisk of immense height. On the four corners 
of the rock recline, in different attitudes, colossal figures 
representhig the four divisions of the globe. The water 
bursts from the crevices beneath them. They are sculp- 
tured with great spirit ; one impatiently tearing a veil from 
his eyes; another with his hands stretched upwards. The 
Fontana di Trevi is the most celebrated, and is rather a 
waterfall than a fountain; gushing out from masses of 
rock, with a gigantic figure of Neptune; and below are 
two river gods, checking tw^o winged horses, struggling up 
from among the rocks and waters. The whole is not ill- 
conceived nor executed ; but you know not how delicate 
the imagination becomes by dieting with antiquity day 
after day. The only things that sustain the comparison 
are Eaphael, Guido, and Salvator Eosa. 

The fountain on the Quirinal, or rather the group 
formed by the statues, obelisk, and the fountain, is, how- 
ever, the most admirable of all. From the Piazza Quiri- 

, ,, [ 99 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

nale^ or rather Monte Cavallo^ you see the boundless ocean 
of domes_, spires, and columns, which is the City, Rome. 
On a pedestal of white marble rises an obelisk of red 
granite, piercing the blue sky. Before it is a 'vast basin 
of porphyry, in the midst of which rises a column of the 
purest water, which collects into itself all the overhang- 
ing colours of the sky, and breaks them into a thousand 
prismatic hues and graduated shadows — they fall together 
with its dashing water-drops into tlie outer basin. The 
elevated situation of this fountain produces, I imagine, 
this effect of colour. On each side, on an elevated pedes- 
tal, stand the statues of Castor and Pollux, each in the act 
of taming his horse, which are said, but I believe wholly 
without authority, to be the work of Phidias and Praxite- 
les. These figures combine the irresistible energy with 
the sublime and perfect loveliness supposed to have be- 
longed to their divine nature. The reins no longer exist, 
but the position of their hands and the sustained and calm 
command of their regard, seem to require no mechanical 
aid to enforce obedience. The countenances at so great a 
height are scarcely visible, and I have a better idea of that 
of which we saw a cast together in London, than of the 
other. But the sublime and living majesty of their limbs 
and mien, the nervous and fiery animation of the horses 
they restrain, seen in the blue sky of Italy, and overlook- 
ing the city of Eome, surrounded by the light and the 
music of that crystalline fountain, no cast can communicate. 
These figures were found at the Baths of Constantine, 
but, of course, are of remote antiquity. I do not acquiesce, 
however, in the practice of attributing to Phidias, or Prax- 
[ 100] 



THE YEAR 1819 

iteles, or Scopas_, or some great master, any admirable 
work that may be found. We find little of what remained, 
and perhaps the works of these were such as greatly sur- 
passed all that we conceive of most perfect and admirable 
in what little has escaped the deluge. If I am too jealous 
of the honour of the Greeks, our masters, and creators, the 
gods whom we should worship, — pardon me. 

I have said what I feel without entering into any critical 
discussions of the ruins of Eome, and the mere outside of 
this inexhaustible mine of thought and feeling. Hob ho use, 
Eustace, and Forsyth, will tell all the shew-knowledge 
about it — " the common stuff of the earth."*^ By-the-bye, 
Forsyth is worth reading, as I judge from a chapter or two 
I have seen. I cannot get the book here. 

I ought to have observed that the central arch of the 
triumphal Arch of Titus ^ yet subsists, more perfect in its 

^ Evidently, Shelley here was writing from a confusion of memories re- 
garding the two arches of Constantine and of Titus, since portions of this 
paragraph apply to the one and portions to the other — a confusion that has 
heen left uncorrected by all his editors. The figures of Victory are on the 
Arch of Constantine ; the true description of the Arch of Titus occurs in 
his Roman Note-Book, as follows : — 

ARCH OF TITUS. 
From Shelley's Roman Note-Booh. 

On the inner compartment of the Arch of Titus, is sculptured in deep re- 
lief, the desolation of a city. On one side, the walls of the Temple, split by 
the fury of conflagration, hang tottering in the act of ruin. The accompani- 
ments of a town taken by assault, matrons and virgins and children and old 
men gathered into groups, and the rapine and licence of a barbarous and 
enraged soldiery, are imaged in the distance. The foreground is occupied 
by a procession of the victors, bearing in their profane hands the holy 
candlesticks and the tables of shewbread, and the sacred instruments of the 
eternal worship of the Jews. On the opposite side, the reverse of this sad 

[ 101 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

proportions, they say, than any of a later date. This I 
did not remark. The figures of Yictory, with unfolded 
wings, and each spurning back a globe with outstretched 
feet, are, perhaps, more beautiful than those on either of 
the others. Their lips are parted : a delicate mode of in- 
dicating the fervour of their desire to arrive at the destined 
resting-place, and to express the eager respiration of their 
speed. Indeed, so essential to beauty were the forms ex- 
pressive of the exercise of the imagination and the affections 
considered by Greek artists, that no ideal figure of an- 
tiquity, not destined to some representation directly exclu- 
sive of such a character, is to be found with closed lips. 
Within this arch are two panelled alto relievoSy one repre- 
senting a train of people bearing in procession the instru- 
ments of Jewish worship, among which is the holy 
candlestick with seven branches; on the other, Titus 
standing in a quadriga, with a winged Yictory. The 
grouping of the horses, and the beauty, correctness, and 
energy of their deUneation, is remarkable, though they are 
much destroyed. 

picture, Titus is represented standing in a chariot drawn by four horses, 
crowned with laurel, and surrounded by the tumultuous numbers of his 
triumphant army, and the magistrates, and priests, and generals, and philos- 
ophers, dragged in chains beside his wheels. Behind him stands a Victory 
eagle-winged. 

The arch is now mouldering into ruins, and the imagery almost erased 
by the lapse of fifty generations. Beyond this obscure monument of 
Hebrew desolation, is seen the tomb of the Destroyer's family, now a 
mountain of ruins. 

The Flavian amphitheatre has become a habitation for owls and dragons. 
The power, of whose possession it was ouce the type, and of whose departure 
it is now the emblem, is become a dream and a memory. Rome is no more 
than Jerusalem. 

[ 102 ] 



nPHE Coliseum seen through 
-^ the Arch of Titus. 




" 77?^ Flavian amphitheatre has become a habitation for 
ovals and dragons. The power ^ of tohose possession it was 
once the type, . . . is become a di^eam and a memorif.^'' 

— Shelley's Roman Note-Book, p, 102. 



THE YEAR 1819 

PEOMETHEUS UNBOUND 
A Lyrical Drama in Four Acts 

AUDISNE H^C AMPHIAB.AE, SUB TEKRAM ABDITE ? 

PEEFACE 

The Greek tragic writers^ in selecting as their subject 
any portion of their national history or mythology, em- 
ployed in their treatment of it a certain arbitrary discretion. 
They by no means conceived themselves bound to adhere 
to the common interpretation or to imitate in story as in 
title their rivals and predecessors. Such a system would 
have amounted to a resignation of those claims to prefer- 
ence over their competitors which incited the composition. 
The Agamemnonian story was exhibited on the Athenian 
theatre with as many variations as dramas. 

I have presumed to employ a similar licence. The 
"Prometheus Unbound ^^ of ^Escliylus supposed the recon- 
ciliation of Jupiter with his victim as the price of the dis- 
closure of the danger threatened to his empire by the 
consummation of his marriage with Thetis. Thetis, ac- 
cording to this view of the subject, was given in marriage 
to Peleus, and Prometheus, by the permission of Jupiter, 
delivered from his captivity by Hercules. Had I framed 
my story on this model, I should have done no more than 
have attempted to restore the lost drama of ^Eschylus ; an 
ambition which, if my preference to this mode of treating 
the subject had incited me to cherish, the recollection of the 
high comparison such an attempt would challenge might 
[103] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

well abate. But, in truth, I was averse from a catastrophe 
so feeble as that of reconciling the Champion with the Op- 
pressor of mankind. The moral interest of the fable, which 
is so powerfully sustained by the sufferings and endurance 
of Prometheus, would be annihilated if we could conceive 
of him as unsaying his high language and quailing before 
his successful and perfidious adversary. The only im- 
aginary being resembling in any degree Prometheus, is 
Satan; and Prometheus is, in my judgment, a more poeti- 
cal character than Satan, because, in addition to courage, 
and majesty, and firm and patient opposition to omnipotent 
force, he is susceptible of being described as exempt from 
the taints of ambition, eiwy, revenge, and a desire for per- 
sonal aggrandisement, which, in the Hero of Paradise Lost, 
interfere with the interest. The character of Satan engen- 
ders in the mind a pernicious casuistry which leads us to 
weigh his faults with his wrongs, and to excuse the former 
because the latter exceed all measure. In the minds of 
those who consider that magnificent fiction with a religious 
feeling it engenders something worse. But Prometheus is, 
as it were, the type of the highest perfection of moral and 
intellectual nature, impelled by the purest and the truest 
motives to the best and noblest ends. 

This Poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous 
ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades 
and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are ex- 
tended in ever winding labyrinths upon its immense plat- 
forms and dizzy arches suspended in the air. The bright 
blue sky of Rome, and the effect of the vigorous awaken- 
ing Spring in that divinest climate, and the new life with 
[ 104 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

which it drenches the spirits even to intoxication, were the 

inspiration of this drama. 

• • • • • • 

Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging 
that I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically 
terms, '^ a passion for reforming the world " : what passion 
incited him to write and publish his book, he omits to 
explain. For my part I had rather be damned with Plato 
and Lord Bacon, than go to Heaven with Paley and Mal- 
thas. But it is a mistake to suppose that I dedicate my 
poetical compositions solely to the direct enforcement of 
reform, or that I consider them in any degree as contain- 
ing a reasoned system on the theory of human life. Didac- 
tic poetry is my abhorrence ; nothing can be equally well 
expressed in prose that is not tedious and supererogatory in 
verse. My purpose has hitherto been simply to familiarise 
the highly refined imagination of the more select classes of 
poetical readers with beautiful idealisms of moral excel- 
lence; aware that until the mind can love, and admire, and 
trust, and hope, and endure, reasoned principles of moral 
conduct are seeds cast upon the highway of life which the 
unconscious passenger tramples into dust, although they 
would bear the harvest of his happiness. Should I live to 
accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a systematical 
history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements of 
human society, let not the advocates of injustice and super- 
stition flatter themselves that I should take ^Eschylus 
rather than Plato as my model. . . . 



[105] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

FROM ACT I OE "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" 

Scene. — Prometheus is discovered bound to a precipice of icy 
rocks in the Indian Caucasus. lone and Panthea (sister-spirits of 
Hope and of Paith) seek to soothe his stern agony. The chorus of 
Puries Laving been repulsed by Prometheus, a chorus of benign 
spirits appear and sing that all evil is the occasion for higher good.^ 

Chorus of Spirits 

From unremembered ages we 
Gentle guides and guardians be 
Of heaven-oppressed mortality ; 
And we breathe, and sicken not, 
The atmosphere of human thought : 
Be it dim, and dank, and grey. 
Like a storm-extinguished day, 
Travelled o^er by dying gleams ; 

Be it bright as all between 
Cloudless skies and windless streams, 

Silent, liquid, and serene ; 
As the birds within the wind, 

As the fish within the wave, 
As the thoughts of man^s own mind 

Float thro' all above the grave ; 
We make there our liquid lair. 
Voyaging cloudlike and unpent 
Thro^ the boundless element : 

^ The world in which the action is supposed to move rings with spirit- 
voices ; and what these spirits sing is more purged of mortal dross than any 
other poet's ear has caught, while listening to his own heart's song, or to 
the rhythms of the world. — Symonds. 

[106] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Thence we bear the prophecy 
Which begins and ends in thee ! 

lone. 

More yet come^ one by one : the air around them 
Looks radiant as the air around a star. 

First Spirit, 

On a battle-trumpet's blast 
I tied hither, fast, fast, fast, 
■'Mid the darkness upward cast. 
Erora the dust of creeds outworn. 
From the tyrant's banner torn, 
Gathering ■'round me, onward borne. 
There was mingled many a cry — 
Freedom ! Hope ! Death ! Yictory ! 
Till they faded thro' the sky; 
And one sound, above, around, 
One sound beneath, around, above. 
Was moving ; ■'t was the soul of love; 
■'Twas the hope, the prophecy. 
Which begins and ends in thee. 

Second Spirit. 

A rainbow's arch stood on the sea, 
Which rocked beneath, immovably ; 
And the triumphant storm did flee. 
Like a conqueror, swift and proud, 
Between, with many a captive cloud, 
A shapeless, dark and rapid crowd, 
[ 107 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Each bj lightning riven in half : 
I hear the thunder hoarsely laugh : 
Mighty fleets were strewn like chaff 
And spread beneath a hell of death 
O'er the white waters. I alit 
On a great ship lightning-split, 
And speeded hither on the sigh 
Of one who gave au enemy 
His plank^ then plunged aside to die. 

Third Spirit. 

I sate beside a sage's bed. 

And the lamp was burning red 

Near the book where he had fed, 

When a Dream with plumes of flame. 

To his pillow hovering came. 

And I knew it was the same 

Which had kindled long ago 

Pity, eloquence, and woe ; 

And the world awhile below 

Wore the shade its lustre made. 

It has borne me here as fleet 

As Desire's lightning feet : 

I must ride it back ere morrow. 

Or the sage will wake in sorrow. 

Fourth Spirit. 

On a poet's lips I slept 
Dreaming like a love-adept 
In the sound his breathing kept; 
[108] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Nor seeks nor finds he mortal blisses, 

But feeds on the aerial kisses 

Of shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses. 

He will watch from dawn to gloom 

The lake- reflected sun illume 

The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom, 

Nor heed nor see,, what things they be ; 

But from these create he can 

Porms more real than living man. 

Nurslings of immortality ! 

One of these awakened me. 

And I sped to succour thee. 

lone. 
Behold''st thou not two shapes from the east and west 
Come, as two doves to one beloved nest, 
Twin nurslings of the all-sustaining air 
On swift still wings glide down the atmosphere ? 
And, hark ! their sweet, sad voices ! ''t is despair 
Mingled with love and then dissolved in sound. 

Fanthea, 
Canst thou speak, sister? all my words are drowned. 

lone. 
Their beauty gives me voice. See how they float. 
On their sustaining wings of skiey grain. 
Orange and azure deepening into gold : 
Their soft smiles light the air like a star's fire. 

Chorus of Spirits. 
Hast thou beheld the form of Love ? 
[ 109] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Fifth Spirit. 

As over wide dominions 
I sped, like some swift cloud that wings the wide air^s 

wildernesses, 
That planet-crested shape swept by on lightning-braided 

pinions, 
Scattering the liquid joy of life from his ambrosial tresses : 
His footsteps paved the world with light ; but as I past 

■'t was fading, 
And hollow Euin yawned behind : great sages bound in 

madness, 
And headless patriots, and pale youths who perished, un- 

upbraiding. 
Gleamed in the night. I wandered o^er, till thou, King 

of sadness. 
Turned by thy smile the worst I saw to recollected gladness. 

Sixth Spirit. 

Ah, sister ! Desolation is a delicate thing : 

It walks not on the earth, it floats not on the air. 

But treads with killing footstep, and fans with silent wing 

The tender hopes which in their hearts the best and 

gentlest bear; 
Who, soothed to false repose by the fanning plumes above 
And the music-stirring motion of its soft and busy feet. 
Dream visions of aerial joy, and call the monster. Love, 
And wake, and find the shadow Pain, as he whom now we 

greet. 

[110] 



THE YEAR 1819 



Cliorus. 



Tho^ Euiii now Lover's shadow be, 
Pollowing him_, destroyingly, 

On Death^s white and winged steed, 
"Which the fleetest cannot flee. 

Trampling down both flower and weed 
Man and beast, and foul and fair. 
Like a tempest thro' the air ; 
Thou shalt quell this horseman grim, 
Woundless though in heart or limb. 

Prometheus. 
Spirits ! how know ye this shall be ? 

Chorus. 

In the atmosphere we breathe, 
As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee, 

Erom Spring gathering up beneath, 
Whose mild winds shake the elder brake. 
And the wandering herdsmen know 
That the white-thorn soon will blow : 
Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace, 
When they struggle to increase. 

Are to us as soft winds be 

To shepherd boys, the prophecy 

Which begins and ends in thee. 

lone. 
Where are the spirits fled ? 

[Ill] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



Tanthea, 

Only a sense 
Eemains of them, like the omnipotence 
Of music, when the inspired voice and lute 
Languish, ere yet the responses are mute, 
Which thro^ the deep and labyrinthine soul, 
Like echoes thro^ long caverns, wind and roll. 

Frometheus. 

How fair these air-born shapes ! and yet I feel 

Most vain all hope but love ; and thou art far, 

Asia ! who, when my being overflowed, 

Wert like a golden chalice to bright wine 

Which else had sunk into the thirsty dust. 

All things are still : alas ! how heavily 

This quiet morning weighs upon my heart; 

Tho^ I should dream I could even sleep with grief 

If slumber were denied not. I would fain 

Be what it is my destiny to be. 

The saviour and the strength of suffering man. 

Or sink into the original gulf of things : 

There is no agony, and no solace left ; 

Earth can console, Heaven can torment no more. 

Tanthea. 

Hast thou forgotten one who watches thee 
The cold dark night, and never sleeps but when 
The shadow of thy spirit falls on her ? 
[ 112 1 



THE YEAR 1819 

Trometheus. 
I said all hope was vain but love : thou lovest. 

JPanthea. 

Deeply in truth ; but the eastern star looks white, 
And Asia waits in that far Indian vale 
The scene of her sad exile; rugged once 
And desolate and frozen, like this ravine ; 
But now invested with fair flowers and herbs, 
And haunted by sweet airs and sounds, which flow 
Among the woods and waters, from the ether 
Of her transforming presence, which would fade 
If it were mingled not with thine. Farewell ! 

END OF THE FIRST ACT. 

FROM ACT II, SC. 5 OF "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" 

In the second act, the interest centres round Asia, the beloved of 
Prometheus, who first awaits him afar in sorrow, and afterward un- 
dertakes a pilgrimage for his redemption. The act closes with a 
Voice (the voice of the unseen Prometheus) singing to her a wor- 
shipful lyric, followed by her response to it. 

Panthea {to Asia). 

How thou art changed ! I dare not look on thee j 

I feel but see thee not. I scarce endure 

The radiance of thy beauty. Some good change 

Is working in the elements, which suffer 

Thy presence thus unveiled. The Nereids teU 

That on the day when the clear hyaline 

8 [ 113 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Was cloven at tliy uprise, and thou didst stand 

Within a veined shell, which floated on 

Over the calm floor of the crystal sea, 

Among the ^Egean isles, and b}^ the shores 

Which bear thy name ; love, like the atmosphere 

Of the sun^s fire filling the living world. 

Burst from thee, and illumined earth and heaven 

And the deep ocean and the sunless caves 

And all that dwells within them ; till grief cast 

Eclipse upon the soul from which it came : 

Such art thoa now ; nor is it I alone. 

Thy sister, thy companion, thine own chosen one. 

But the whole world which seeks thy sympathy. 

Hearest thou not sounds i^ the air which speak the love 

Of all articulate beings ? Feelest thou not 

The inanimate ^inds enamoured of thee ? List ! (Music.) 

■ Asia. 

Thy words are sweeter than aught else but his 
Whose echoes they are : yet all love is sweet, 
Given or returned. Common as light is love. 
And its familiar voice wearies not ever. 
Like the wide heaven, the all-sustaining air. 
It makes the reptile equal to the God : ^ 
They who inspire it most are fortunate, 

1 Compare Bi'owning : — 

" For tlie loving worm within its clod 
Were diviner tlian a loveless god." 

Also SheUey again in Epijisychidion : — 

" The spirit of the worm beneath the sod 
In love and worship blends itself with God." 

[ lit] 



THE YEAR 1819 

As I am now ; but those who feel it most 
Are happier still, after long sufferings, 
As I shall soon become. 

Panthea. 

List ! Spirits speak 

Voice in the Air, singing. 

Life of Life ! thy lips enkindle 

With their love the breath between them ; 
And thy smiles before they dwindle 

Make the cold air fire ; then screen them 
In those looks, where whoso gazes 
Faints, entangled in their mazes. 

Child of Light ! thy limbs are burning 
Thro' the vest which seems to hide them ; 

As the radiant lines of morning 

Thro' the clouds ere they divide them ; 

And this atmosphere divinest 

Shrouds thee wheresoe'er thou shinest. 

Fair are others ; none beholds thee, 
But thy voice sounds low and tender 

Like the fairest, for it folds thee 

From the sight, that liquid splendour. 

And all feel, yet see thee never, 

As I feel now, lost for ever 1 

Lamp of Earth ! where'er thou movest 
Its dim shapes are clad with brightness, 
[115] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And the souls of whom thou loves 

Walk upon the winds with lightness. 
Till they fail, as I am failing, 
Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing ! 

Asia} 

My soul is an enchanted boat. 

Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float 
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing ; 

And thine doth like an angel sit 

Beside a helm conducting it. 
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing. 

It seems to float ever, for ever. 

Upon that many-winding river, 

Between mountains, woods, abysses, 

A paradise of wildernesses ! 
Till, like one in slumber bound, 
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around. 
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound. 

Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions 

In music's most serene dominions ; 
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven. 

And we sail on, away, afar. 

Without a course, without a star. 
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven ; 

Till through Elysian garden islets 

By thee, most beautiful of pilots, 

1 This has been read by many of us scores of times with scarcely a 
wish perhaps to trace out its intricate meaning, but with a keen delight in 
its ideal charm, its supersensuous meander. — Rossetti. 

[116] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Where never mortal pinnace glided, 

The boat of my desire is guided : 
Eealms where the air we breatlie is love. 
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move, 
Harmonising this earth with what we feel above. 

We have passM Age's icy caves, 

And manhood^s dark and tossing waves, 
And Youth^'s smooth ocean, smiling to betray : 

Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee 

Of shadow-peopled Infancy, 
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day ; 

A paradise of vaulted bowers. 

Lit by downward-gazing flowers, 

And watery paths that wind between 

Wildernesses calm and green. 
Peopled by shapes too bright to see, 
And rest, having beheld, — somewhat like thee, — 
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously ! 

END OF THE SECOND ACT.^ 

1 The second act, in which the myth of Asia is unfolded, is poetically 
the most Avonderful in the Prometheus Unbound, — that is to say, in the 
whole cycle of Enghsh song. — Vida D. Scuddek. 



[117] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

The third act having accomplished the release of Prometheus and 
his reunion with Asia, Act IV follows with its chorus of rejoicing, in 
which all powers of earth and air, of the world natural and the world 
spiritual, unite. 

EROM ACT IV OF "PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" 

Voice of unseen Spirits. 
The pale stars are gone ! 
Por the sun, their swift shepherd, 
To their folds them compelling, 
In the depths of the dawn, 
Hastes, in meteor-eclipsing array, and they flee 
Beyond his blue dwelling, 
As fawns flee the leopard. 

But where are ye ? 

A Train of dark Forms and Shadows passes hy 
confusedly, singing. 

Here, oh, here : 

We bear the bier 
Of the Father of many a cancelled year ! 

Spectres we 

Of the dead Hours be. 
We bear Time to his tomb in eternity. 

Strew, oh, strew 

Hair, not yew ! 
Wet che dusty pall Avith tears, not dew ! 

Be the faded flowers 

Of Death^s bare bowers 
Spread on the corpse of the King of Hours ! 
[ 118 ] 



THE YEAH 1819 

Haste^ oh^ haste ! 

As shades are chased, 
Trembling, by day, from heaven's blue waste. 

We melt away, 

Like dissolving spray. 
From the children of a diviner day. 

With tlie lullaby 

Of winds that die 
On the bosom of their own harmony ! 

lone. 

Even whilst we speak 
New notes arise. What is that awful sound ? 

Panthea. 

'T is the deep music of tlie rolling world 
Kindling within the strings of the waved air, 
^olian modulations. 

lone. 

Listen too. 
How every pause is filled with undernotes. 
Clear, silver, icy, keen, awakening tones. 
Which pierce the sense, and live within the soul. 
As the sharp stars pierce Winter^s crystal air 
And gaze uj)on themselves within the sea. 

Panthea. 

But see where, through two openings in the forest 
Which hanging branches overcanopy, 
[119] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And where two runnels of a rivulet, 

Between the close moss violet-inwoven, 

Have made their path of melody, like sisters 

Who part with sighs that they may meet in smiles. 

Turning their dear disunion to an isle 

Of lovely grief, a wood of sweet sad thoughts. 

Two visions of strange radiance float upon 

The ocean-like enchantment of strong sound, 

Which flows intenser, keener, deeper yet 

Under the ground and through the windless air. 

lone. 

I see a chariot like that thinnest boat. 
In which the Mother of the Months is borne 
By ebbing night into her western cave. 
When she upsprings from interlunar dreams. 
O'er which is curved an orb-like canopy 
Of gentle darkness, and the hills and woods. 
Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil, 
Eegard like shapes in an enchanter's glass; 
Its wheels are solid clouds, azure and gold, 
Such as the genii of the thunderstorm 
Pile on the floor of the illumined sea 
When the sun rushes under it ; they roll 
And move and grow as with an inward wind ; 
Within it sits a winged infant, white 
Its countenance, like the whiteness of bright snow. 
Its plumes are as feathers of sunny frost. 
Its limbs gleam white, through the wind-flowing folds 
Of its white robe, woof of ethereal pearl. 
[ 120 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Its hair is white, the brightness of white light 

Scattered in strings ; yet its two eyes are heavens 

Of liquid darkness, which the Deity 

Within seems pouring, as a storm is poured 

From jagged clouds, out of their arrowy lashes. 

Tempering the cold and radiant air around 

With fire that is not brightness ; in its hand 

It sways a quivering moonbeam, from whose point 

A guiding power directs the chariot^s prow 

Over its wheeled clouds, which as they roll 

Over the grass, and flowers, and waves, wake sounds 

Sweet as a singing rain of silver dew. 

Faniliea. 

And from the other opening in the wood 
Eushes, with loud and wliirlwind harmony, 
A sphere, which is as many thousand spheres, 
Solid as crystal, yet through all its mass 
Flow, as through empty space, music and light : 
Ten thousand orbs involving and involved. 
Purple and azure, white, and green, and golden. 
Sphere within sphere ; and every shape between 
Peopled with unimaginable shapes. 
Such as ghosts dream dwell in the lampless deep. 
Yet each inter-transpicuous, and they whirl 
Over each other with a thousand motions, 
Upon a thousand sightless axles spinning, 
And with the force of self- destroying swiftness. 
Intensely, slowly, solemnly roll on. 
Kindling with mingled sounds, and many tones, 
[121] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Intelligible words and music wild. 

With mighty whirl the multitudinous orb 

Grinds the bright brook into an azure mist 

Of elemental subtlety^ like light ; 

And the wild odour of the forest flowers^ 

The music of the living grass and air^ 

The emerald light of leaf-entangled beams 

Eound its intense yet self-conflicting speedy 

Seem kneaded into one aerial mass 

Which drowns the sense. Within the orb itself. 

Pillowed upon its alabaster arms, 

Like to a child overwearied with sweet toil. 

On its own folded wings, and wavy hair. 

The Spirit of the Earth is laid asleep, 

And you can see its little lips are moving, 

Amid the changing light of their own smiles, 

Like one who talks of what he loves in dream, 

lone. 
^T is only mocking the orb's harmony. 

Panthea. 

And from a star upon its forehead, shoot. 
Like swords of azure fire, or golden spears 
With tyrant-quelling myrtle overtwined. 
Embleming heaven and earth united now, 
Yast beams like spokes of some invisible wheel 
Which whirl as the orb whirls, swifter than thought. 
Filling the abyss with sun-like lightnings. 
And perpendicular now, and now transverse, 
[ 122] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Pierce the dark soil, and as they pierce and pass, 
Make bare the secrets of the earth^s deep heart ; 
Infinite mine of adamant and gold, 
Valueless stones, and unimagined gems. 
And caverns on crystalline columns poised 
"With vegetable silver overspread ; 
Wells of unfathomed fire, and water springs 
Whence the great sea, even as a child, is fed. 
Whose vapours clothe earth's monarch mountain-tops 
With kingly, ermine snow. The beams flash on 
And make appear the melancholy ruins 
Of cancelled cycles ; anchors, beaks of ships ; 
Planks turned to marble ; quivers, helms, and spears. 
And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels 
Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry 
Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, 
Eound which death laughed, sepulchred emblems 
Of dead destruction, ruin within ruin ! 
The wrecks beside of many a city vast. 
Whose population which the earth grew over 
Was mortal, but not human ; see, they lie, 
Their monstrous works, and uncouth skeletons. 
Their statues, homes and fanes ; prodigious shapes 
Huddled in grey annihilation, split, 
Jammed in the hard, black deep ; and over these. 
The anatomies of unknown winged things. 
And fishes which were isles of living scale, 
And serpents, bony chains, twisted around 
The iron crags, or within heaps of dust 
To which the tortuous strength of their last pangs 
[ 123 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Had crashed the iron crags ; and over these 

The jagged alligator^ and the might 

Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once 

Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores 

And weed-overgrown continents of earth 

Increased and multiplied like Summer worms 

On an abandoned corpse^ till the blue globe 

Wrapt deluge round it like a cloak^ and they 

Yelled^ gasped^ and were abolished ; or some God 

Whose throne was in a comet, passed and cried 

" Be not ! /■' And like my words they were no more. 

Bemogorgon. 
This is the day, which down the void abysm 
At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven^s despotism, 

And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep : 
Love, from its awful throne of patient power 
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour 

Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep, 
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs 
And folds over the world its healing wings. 

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance, 
These are the seals of that most firm assurance 

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength; 
And if, with infirm hand. Eternity, 
Mother of many acts and hours, should free 

The serpent that would clasp her with his length, 
These are the spells by which to reassume 
An empire o'er the disentangled doom. 
[ 124 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite ; 
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night ; 

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent ; 
To love, and bear ; to hope till Hope creates 
Prom its own wreck the thing it contemplates ; 

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent ; 
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be 
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; 
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Yictory. 

Home, April 6, 1819. 

My ^^ Prometheus Unbound'^ is just finished, and in a 
month or two I shall send it. It is a drama, with char- 
acters and mechanism of a kind yet unattempted; and 
I think the execution is better than any of my former 
attempts. By-the-bye, have you seen Oilier? I never 
hear from him, and am ignorant whether some verses 
I sent him from Naples, entitled, I think, "Lines on 
the Euganean Hills," have reached him in safety or not. 
As to the Reviews, I suppose there is nothing but abuse ; 
and this is not hearty or sincere enough to amuse me. 
As to the poem now printing,^ I lay no stress on it one 
way or the other. The concluding lines are natural. 

I believe, my dear Peacock, that you wish us to come 
back to England. How is it possible? Health, compe- 
tence, tranquillity — all these Italy permits, and England 
takes away. I am regarded by all who know or hear of 
me, except, I think, on the whole, five individuals, as a 

1 Rosalind and Helen. 

[ 125 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

rare prodigy of crime and pollution^ whose look even 
might infect. This is a large computation, and I don^t 
think I could mention more than three. Such is the 
spirit of the English abroad as well as at home. 

Few compensate, indeed, for all the rest, and if I were 
alo7ie I should laugh ; or if I were rich enough to do all 
things, w^hich I shall never be. Pity me for my absence 
from those social enjoyments which England might afford 
me, and which I know so well how to appreciate. Still, I 
shall return some fine morning, out of pure weakness of 
heart. 

To THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK, 
On the Publication op his '^Nightmare Abbey.^^ 

LivoRNO, July 6, 1819. 

We have changed our design of going to Florence im- 
mediately, and are now established for three months in 
a little country house -^ in a pretty verdant scene near 
Livorno. 

I have a study here in a tower something like Scythrop's,^ 
where I am just beginning to recover the faculties of 
reading and writing.^ . . . From my tower I see the sea 
with its islands, Gorgona, Capraja, Elba, and Corsica on 
one side, and the Apennines on the other. 

1 Now known as Villa Mecocci, on Via del Fagiano, Leghorn. 

2 A character in Nightmare Abbey somewhat resembling Shelley. The 
" tower " no longer exists, but the house-top is enclosed by a low parapet of 
brick and commands the same extensive view. Mrs. Shelley says, " In this 
airy cell he wrote the principal part oiThe Cenci" 

^ After the death of his son William in Rome on June 7th. 

[ 126 ] 



)ORTRATT of Beatrice Cenci. 
the Barberini Gallery, Rome. 



In 




See Preface to "The Ceuci," p. I: 



THE YEAR 1819 

All good wishes and many hopes that you have already 
that success on which there will be no congratulations 
more cordial than those you will receive from me. 

FEOM THE PEEEACE TO ^^ THE CENCI ^^ i 

On my arrival at Eome I found that the story of the 
Cenci was a subject not to be mentioned in Italian society 
without awakening a deep and breathless interest ; and that 
the feelings of the company never failed to incline to a 
romantic pity for the wrongs^ and a passionate exculpation 
of the horrible deed to which they urged her who has been 
mingled two centuries with the common dust. All ranks 
of people knew the outlines of this history, and participated 
in the overwhelming interest which it seems to have the 
magic of exciting in the human heart. I had a copy of 
Guido's picture of Beatrice which is preserved in the 
Colonua Palace, and my servant instantly recognised it 
as the portrait of La Cenci. 

I endeavored whilst at Rome to observe such monu- 
ments of this story as might be accessible to a stranger. 
The portrait of Beatrice at the Colonna Palace ^ is admi- 
rable as a work of art : it was taken by Guido during her 
confinement in prison. But it is most interesting as a 
just representation of one of the loveliest specimens of the 
workmanship of Nature. There is a fixed and pale com- 

1 Shelley's ardent desire to have his tragedy presented on the London 
stage was never realized during his life. Its first performance took place 
there May 7, 1886, under the auspices of the Shelley Society. 

^ Now in the Barberini Palace. — Ed. 

[ in ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

posure upon the features : she seems sad and stricken down 
in spirit^ yet the despair thus expressed is lightened by 
the patience of gentleness. Her head is bound with folds 
of white drapery^ from which the yellow strings of her 
golden hair escape, and fall about her neck. The mould- 
ing of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are 
distinct and arched : the lips have that permanent meaning 
of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not 
repressed and which it seems as if death scarcely could 
extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, 
which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are 
swollen with weeping and lustreless, but beautifully tender 
and serene. In the whole mien there is a simplicity and 
dignity which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep 
sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears 
to have been one of those rare persons in whom energy and 
gentleness dwell together without destroying one another : 
her nature was simple and profound. The crimes and 
miseries in which she was an actor and a sufferer are as 
the mask and the mantle in which circumstances clothed 
]ier for her impersonation on the scene of the world. 

The Cenci Palace is of great extent; and though in part 
modernised, there yet remains a vast and gloomy pile of 
feudal architecture in the same state as during the dreadful 
scenes which are the subject of this tragedy. The Palace 
is situated in an obscure corner of Rome, near the quarter 
of the Jews, and from the upper windows you see the im- 
mense ruins of Mount Palatine half hidden under their 
profuse overgrowth of trees. There is a court in one 
part of the Palace ( perhaps that in which Cenci built the 
[ 128 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Chapel to St. Thomas ), supported by granite columns and 
adorned with antique friezes of fine workmanship, and built 
up, according to the ancient Italian fashion, with balcony 
over balcony of open-work. One of the gates of the Palace 
formed of immense stones and leading through a passage, 
dark and lofty and opening into gloomy subterranean 
chambers, struck me particularly. 

CLOSING SCENES OE ^^THE CENCI *' 

Beatrice is in prison awaiting sentence for the murder of her 
father. She is visited there by her stepmother Lueretia, her 
brothers Bernardo and Giacomo, and by Cardinal Camillo. 

Act Y. Scene III — The Cell of a Prison. Bea- 
trice is discovered asleep on a couch. Enter 
Bernardo. 

Bernardo. 

How gently slumber rests upon her face. 

Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent 

Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged. 

After such torments as she bore last night. 

How light and soft her breathing comes. Ah me ! 

Methinks that I shall never sleep again. 

But I must shake the heavenly dew of rest 

From this sweet folded flower^ thus . . . wake ! awake ! 

What, sister, canst thou sleep ? 

Beatrice [awaking). 

I was just dreaming 
That we were all in Paradise. Thou knowest 
This cell seems like a kind of Paradise 
After our father's presence. 
9 [ 129 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Bernardo. 

Dear, dear sister, 
Would that thy dream were not a dream ! God ! 
How shall I tell ? 

Beatrice. 

What wouldst thou tell, sweet brother ? 

Bernardo. 

Look not so calm and happy, or even whilst 
I stand considering what I have to say 
My heart will break. 

Beatrice. 

See now, thou mak'st me weep : 
How very friendless thou wouldst be, dear child, 
If I were dead. Say what thou hast to say. 

Bernardo. 

They have confessed ; they could endure no more 
The tortures . . . 

Beatrice. 

Ha ! What was there to confess ? 
They must have told some weak and wicked lie 
To flatter their tormentors. Have they said 
That they were guilty ? white Innocence, 
That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide 
Thine awful and serenest countenance 
From those who know thee not ! 
[ 130 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 



Enter Judge with Ltjcretia and Giacomo, guarded. 

Ignoble hearts ! 
For some brief spasms of pain, which are at least 
As mortal as the limbs through which they pass, 
Are centuries of high splendour laid in dust ? 
And that eternal honour which should live 
Sunlike, above the reek of mortal fame, 
Changed to a mockery and a bye-word ? What ! 
Will you give up these bodies to be dragged 
At horses' heels, so that our hair should sweep 
The footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd, 
Who, that they may make our calamity 
Their worship and their spectacle, will leave 
The churches and the theatres as void 
As their own hearts ? Shall the light multitude 
Fling, at their choice, curses or faded pity. 
Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse. 
Upon us as we pass to pass away, 
And leave . . . what memory of our having been ? 
Infamy, blood, terror, despair ? thou. 
Who wert a mother to the parentless. 
Kill not thy child ! Let not her wrongs kill thee ! 
Brother, lie down with me upon the rack. 
And let us each be silent as a corpse ; 
It soon will be as soft as any grave. 
''T is but the falsehood it can wring from fear 
Makes the rack cruel. 



[131] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Giacomo, 

They will tear the truth 
Even from thee at last, those cruel pains : 
For pity^s sake say thou art guilty now. 

Lucretia. 

Oh, speak the truth ! Let us all quickly die ; 
And after death God is our judge, not they; 
He will have mercy on us. 

Bernardo. 

If indeed 
It can be true, say so, dear sister mine ; 
And then the Pope Avill surely pardon you. 
And all be well. 

" ''le. 



Confess, or I will warp 
Your limbs with such keen tortures . . . 

Beatrice. 

Tortures ! Turn 

The rack henceforth into a spinning wheel ! 

Torture your dog, that he may tell when last 

He lapped the blood his master shed . . . not me ! 

My pangs are of the mind, and of the heart, 

And of the soul ; ay, of the inmost soul, 

"Which weeps within tears as of burning gall 

To see, in this ill world where none are true. 

My kindred false to their deserted selves. 

And with considering all the wretched life 

[ 132 ] 



c 



ENCI PALACE at Rome. 







— See Preface to " The Cenci," p. 128. 



THE YEAR 1819 

Which I have lived, and its now wretched end, 

And the small justice shown by Heaven and Earth 

To me or mine ; and what a tyrant thou art, 

And what slaves these ; and what a world we make, 

The oppressor and the oppressed . . . such pangs compel 

My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me ? 



Art thou not guilty of thy father^s death ? 

Beatrice. 
Or wilt thou rather tax high judging God 
That he permitted such an act as that 
Which I have suffered, and which he beheld ; 
Made it unutterable, and took from it 
All refuge, all revenge, all consequence. 
But that which thou hast called my father^s death ? 
Which is or is not what men call a crime. 
Which either I have done, or have not done ; 
Say what ye will. I shall deny no more. 
If ye desire it thus, thus let it be. 
And so an end of all. Now do jomy will ; 
No other pains shall force another word. 

Judge, 
She is convicted, but has not confessed. 
Be it enough. Until their final sentence 
Let none have converse with them. You, young Lord, 
Linger not here ! 

Beatrice. 

Oh, tear him not away ! 
[133 j 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Judge, 
Guards ! do your duty. 

Bernardo (embracing Beatrice). 

Oh ! would ye divide 
Body from soul ? 

Officer, 

That is the headsman^s business. 

\_Exeunt all but Luceetia, 
Beatrice^ and Giacomo. 

Giacomo. 
Have I confessed ? Is it all over now ? 
No hope ? No refuge ? weak, wicked tongue 
Which hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst been 
Cut out and thrown to dogs first ! To have killed 
My father first, and then betrayed my sister — 
Ay, thee ! the one thing innocent and pure 
In this black guilty world — to that w4iich I 
So well deserve ! My wife ! my little ones ! 
Destitute, helpless, and I . . . Father ! God ! 
Canst thou forgive even the unforgiving, 
"When their full hearts break thus, thus ! . . . 

[Covers his face and wee^s. 

Lucretia. 

my child! 
To what dreadful end are we all come ! 
Why did I yield ? Why did I not sustain 
Those torments ! Oh, that I were all dissolved 
Into these fast and unavailing tears, 
Which flow and feel not ! 

[ 134 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Beatrice. 

What 'i was weak to do 
'T is weaker to lament, once being done ; 
Take cheer ! The God who knew mj wrong, and made 
Our speedy act the angel of his wrath, 
Seems, and but seems, to have abandoned us. 
Let us not think that we shall die for this. 
Brother, sit near me ; give me your firm hand. 
You had a manly heart. Bear up ! Bear up ! 
dearest Lady, put your gentle head 
Upon my lap, and try to sleep awhile : 
Your eyes look pale, hollow, and overworn. 
With heaviness of watching and slow grief. 
Come, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune, 
Not cheerful, nor yet sad ; some dull old thing, 
Some outworn and unused monotony. 
Such as our country gossips sing and spin. 
Till they almost forget they live : lie down ! 
So, that will do. Have I forgot the words ? 
Faith ! They are sadder than I thought they were. 

SONG 

False friend, wilt thou smile or weep 

When my life is laid asleep ? 

Little cares for a smile or a tear. 

The clay-cold corpse upon the bier ! 
Farewell ! Heigho 1 
What is this whispers low ? 

There is a snake in thy smile, my dear ; 

And bitter poison within thy tear. 
[ 135 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Sweet sleep, were death like to thee. 
Or if thou couldst mortal be, 
I would close these eyes of pain ; 
When to wake ? Never again. 

O World! Farewell! 

Listen to the passing bell ! 
It says, thou and I must part, 
With a light and a heavy heart. 
[The scene closes ^^ 

SCENE IV. — A Hall op the Prison. Enter Ca- 
MiLLO and Bernardo. 
Camillo. 
The Pope is stern ; not to be moved or bent. 
He looked as calm and keen as is the engine 
Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself 
From aught that it inflicts ; a marble form, 
A rite, a law, a custom : not a man. 
He frowned, as if to frown had been the trick 
Of his machinery, on the advocates 
Presenting the defences, which he tore 
And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice : 
''Which among ye defended their old father 
Killed in his sleep ? '' Then to another : " Thou 
Dost this in virtue of thy place; ^tis well/^ 
He turned to me then, looking deprecation, 
And said these three words, coldly : " They must die.'' 

Bernardo, 
And yet you left him not ? 

[136] 



THE YEAR 1819 

Camillo, 

I urged him still ; 
Pleadings as I could guess, the devilish wrong 
Which prompted your unnatural parentis death. 
And he replied : " Paola Santo Croce 
Murdered his mother yester evening, 
And he is fled. Parricide grows so rife 
That soon, for some just cause no doubt, the young 
Will strangle us all, dozing in our chairs. 
Authority, and power, and hoary hair 
Are grown crimes capital. You are my nephew, 
You come to ask their pardon ; stay a moment ; 
Here is their sentence ; never see me more 
Till, to the letter, it be aU fidfilled/' 

Bernardo. 
God, not so ! I did believe indeed 
That all you said was but sad preparation 
For happy news. Oh, there are words and looks 
To bend the sternest purpose ! Once I knew them, 
Now I forget them at my dearest need. 
What think you if I seek him out, and bathe 
His feet and robe with hot and bitter tears ? 
Importune him with prayers, vexing his brain 
With my perpetual cries, until in rage 
He strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample 
Upon my prostrate head, so that my blood 
May stain the senseless dust on which he treads. 
And remorse waken mercy ? I will do it ! 
Oh, wait till I return ! [Rushes out. 

[ 137 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Camillo. 

Alas ! poor boy ! 
A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray 
To the deaf sea. 
Enter Lucretia, Beatrice, and Giacomo, guarded. 

Beatrice. 

I hardly dare to fear 
That thou bring'st other news than a just pardon. 

Camillo. 

May God in heaven be less inexorable 

To the Pope^s prayers, than he has been to mine. 

Here is the sentence and the warrant. 

Beatrice (wildly). 

Oh, 
My God ! Can it be possible I have 
To die so suddenly ? So young to go 
Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground ! 
To be nailed down into a narrow place; 
To see no more sweet sunshine ; hear no more 
Blithe voice of living thing ; muse not again 
Upon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost — 
How fearful ! to be nothing ! Or to be . . . 
What ? Oh, where am I ? Let m.e not go mad ! 
Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts ! If there should be 
No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world ; 
The wide, grey, lampless, deep, unpeopled world ! 
If all things then should be ... my father^s spirit, 
[ 138 ] 




c 



THE YEAR 1819 

His eye, his voice, his touch surrounding me ; 

The atmosphere and breath of mj dead life ! 

If sometimes, as a shape more like himself. 

Even the form which tortured me on earth, 

Masked in grey hairs and wrinkles, he should come 

And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix 

His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down ! 

For was he not alone omnipotent 

On earth, and ever present ? Even tho^ dead. 

Does not his spirit live in all that breathe. 

And work for me and mine still the same ruin. 

Scorn, pain, despair ? Who ever yet returned 

To teach the laws of death^s untrodden realm ? 

Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now. 

Oh, whither, whither ? 

Lucretia. 

Trust in Code's sweet love, 
The tender promises of Christ : ere night. 
Think, we shall be in Paradise. 

Beatrice. 

'T is past ! 
Whatever comes my heart shall sink no more. 
And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill : 
How tedious, false and cold seem all things. I 
Have met with much injustice in this world; 
No difference has been made by God or man. 
Or any power moulding my wretched lot, 
^T wixt good or evil, as regarded me. 
I am cut off from the only world I know, 
[ 139 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Erom ligbt^ and life, and love, in youth^s sweet prime. 
You do well telling me to trust in God, 
I hope I do trust in him. In whom else 
Can any trust ? And yet my heart is cold. 

\_I)uring the latter speeches Giacomo has retired 

conversing with Camillo, who now goes out; 

Giacomo advances, 

Giacomo. 

Know you not, Mother . . . Sister, know you not ? 
Bernardo even now is gone to implore 
The Pope to grant our pardon. 

Lucretia. 

Child, perhaps 
It will be granted. We may all then live 
To make these woes a tale for distant years : 
Oh, what a thought ! It gushes to my heart 
Like the warm blood. 

Beatrice. 

Yet both will soon be cold. 
Oh, trample out that thought ! Worse than despair, 
Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope : 
It is the only ill which can find place 
Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour 
Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost 
That it should spare the eldest flower of Spring : 
Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch 
Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free ; 
Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead 

[ 140 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 

With famine^ or wind- walking Pestilence, 

Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man ! 

Cruel, cold, formal man ; righteous in words. 

In deeds a Cain. No, Mother, we must die : 

Since such is the reward of innocent lives. 

Such the alleviation of worst wrongs. 

And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men. 

Smiling and slow, walk thro' a world of tears 

To death as to life's sleep ; 't were just the grave 

Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death, 

And wind me in thine all-embracing arms ! 

Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom. 

And rock me to the sleep from which none wake ! 

Live ye, who live, subject to one another 

As we were once, who now . . . 

[Bernardo rus/ies in, 

Bernardo, 

Oh, horrible. 
That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer. 
Even till the heart is vacant and despairs, 
Should all be vain ! The ministers of death 
Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw 
Blood on the face of one . . . What if 't were fancy ? 
Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth 
Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off 
As if 't were only rain. life ! world ! 
Cover me ! let me be no more ! To see 
That perfect mirror of pure innocence 
Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good, 
[141] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Shivered to dust ! To see thee, Beatrice, 

Who made all lovely thou didst look upon . . . 

Thee, light of life . . . dead, dark ! while I say, " Sister,'^ 

To hear I have no sister ; and thou. Mother, 

Whose love was as a bond to all our loves ... 

Dead 1 The sweet bond broken ! 

Enter Camillo aiicl Guards. 

They come ! Let me 
Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves 
Are blighted . . . white . . . cold. Say farewell, before 
Death chokes that gentle voice ! Oh, let me hear 
You speak ! 

Beatrice, 

Farewell, my tender brother. Think 
Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now : 
And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee 
Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair, 
But tears and patience. One thing more, my child, 
Eor thine own sake be constant to the love 
Thou bearest us ; and to the faith that I, 
Tho^ wrapt in a strange cloud of crime and shame. 
Lived ever holy and unstained. And tho^ 
m tongues shall Avound me, and our common name 
Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow 
For men to point at as they pass, do thou 
Forbear, and never think a thought unkind 
Of those who perhaps love thee in their graves. 
So mayest thou die as I do, fear and pain 
Being subdued. Farewell ! Farewell ! Farewell ! 

[ 142 ] 




I 3 

? 2 



THE YEAR 1819 

Bernardo, 
I cannot say farewell ! 

Camillo, 
O Lady Beatrice I 

Beatrice. 
Give yourself no unnecessary pain^ 
My dear Lord Cardinal. Here^, Mother^ tie 
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair 
In any simple knot ; ay, that does well. 
And yours I see is coming down. How often 
Have we done this for one another ! now 
We shall not do it any more. My Lord, 
We are quite ready. Well, "'tis very well. 

THE END. 

EEAGMENT 

ON THE MEDUSA OF LEONARDO DA VINCI IN THE 
FLORENTINE GALLERY 

I 

It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky, 
Upon the cloudy mountain peak supine ; 

Below, far lands are seen tremblingly ; 
Its horror and its beauty are divine. 

Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie 

Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine, 

Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath, 

The agonies of anguish and of death. 
[143] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

II 

Yet it is less the horror than the grace 
Which turns the gazer^s spirit into stone ; 

Whereon the lineaments of that dead face 
Are graven, till the characters be grown 

Into itself J and thought no more can trace ; 
/Tis the melodious hues of beauty thrown 

Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain, 

Which humanise and harmonise the strain. 

Ill 

And from its head as from one body grow. 
As grass out of a watery rock. 

Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow 
And their long tangles in each other lock, 

And with unending involutions show 

Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock 

The torture and the death within, and saw 

The solid air with many a ragged jaw. 

IV 

And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft 
Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes ; 

Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft 
Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise 

Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft. 
And he comes hastening like a moth that hies 

After a taper ; and the midnight sky 

Flares, a light more dread than obscurity. 
[ 144 ] 



THE YEAR 1819 



^T is the tempestuous loveliness of terror ; 

Eor from the serpents gleams a brazen glare 
Kindled by that inextricable error. 

Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air 
Become a . . . and ever-shifting mirror 

Of all the beauty and the terror there — 
A woman^s countenance, with serpent locks, 
Gazing in death on heaven from those wet rocks. 



LOVERS PHILOSOPHY 



The fountains mingle with the river 

And the rivers with the ocean. 
The winds of heaven mix for ever 

With a sweet emotion ; 
Nothing in the world is single ; 

All tilings by a law divine 
In one spirit meet and mingle. 

Why not I with thine ? — 

II 

See, the mountains kiss high heaven 
And the waves clasp one another ; 
No sister-flower would be forgiven 
If it disdained its brother, 
10 [ 145 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And the sunlight clasps the earth 
And the moonbeams kiss the sea : 

What is all this sweet work worth 
If thou kiss not me ? 



ODE TO THE WEST WIND i 

I 

WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, 
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead 
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing. 

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red. 
Pestilence-stricken multitudes : O thou. 
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed 

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low. 
Each like a corpse within its grave, until 
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow 

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill 
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) 
With living hues and odours plain and liill : 

1 This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the 
Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose 
temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours 
which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset 
with a violent tempest of hail, and rain, attended by that magnificent thun- 
der and lightning peculiar to the Cisalpine regions. 

The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well 
known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and 
of lakes, sympathises with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is con- 
sequently influenced by the winds which announce it. — Shelley's Note. 

[ 146 ] 



w 



GODS of the Casciue and the River Artio, near Florence. 





" This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood 
that skirts the Arno, near Florence."' 

— Shelley's Note to the " Ode to the West Wind," p.l40. 



THE YEAR 1819 

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere ; 
Destroyer and preserver ; hear, Oh hear ! 

n 

Thou on whose stream, ^mid the steep sky's commotion, 
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed. 
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, 

Angels of rain and lightning : there are spread 
On the blue surface of thine airy surge, 
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head 

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge 

Of the horizon to the zenith's heiglit 

The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge 

Of the dying year, to which this closing night 
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre. 
Vaulted with all thy congregated might 

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere 

Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst : Oh hear ! 

Ill 

Thou who didst waken from his Summer dreams 
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay. 
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams^ 

Beside a pumice isle in Baise's bay, 
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers 
Quivering within the wave's intenser day, 
[147] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers 

So sweety the sense faints picturing them ! Thou 

Eor whose path the Atlantic's level powers 

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below 
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear 
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know 

Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, 
And tremble and despoil themselves : Oh hear ! 

IV 

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear ; 

If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee ; 

A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share 

The impulse of thy strength, only less free 
Than thou, O uncontrollable ! If even 
I were as in my boyhood, and could be 

The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven. 

As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed 

Scarce seemed a vision ; I would ne'er have striven 

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. 
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud ! 
I fall upon the thorns of life ! I bleed ! 

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed 
One too like thee : tameless, and swift, and proud. 
[148] 



THE YEAR 1819 

V 

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is : 
"What if my leaves are falling like its own ? 
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies 

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, 
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, 
My spirit ! Be thou me, impetuous one ! 

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe 
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth ! 
And, by the incantation of this verse. 

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth 
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind ! 
Be through my lips to unawakened earth 

The trumpet of a prophecy ! Wind, 

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind ? 

THE INDIAN SEEENADE i 
I 

I ARISE from dreams of thee 
In the first sweet sleep of night. 
When the winds are breathing low. 
And the stars are shining bright : 

^ The Indian Serenade, written probably in 1819, but not published 
until after Shelley's death, was found together with a volume of Keats on 
Shelley's body when washed ashore by the sea. The manuscript was ex- 
amined by Robert Browning in 1857, who wrote of it, " It is preserved 
religiously ; but the characters are all but illegible, and I needed a strong 
magnifying- glass to be quite sure of those that remain. The end is that I 
have rescued three or four variations in the reading of that divine little 
poem — as one reads it, at least, in the Posthumous Poems." 

[ 149 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

I arise from dreams of thee, 
And a spirit in my feet 
Hath led me — who knows how ? 
To thy chamber window, Sweet ! 

II 

The wandering airs they faint 
On the dark, the silent stream — 
And the Champak odours fail 
Like sweet thoughts in a dream ; 
The nightingale's complaint, 
It dies upon her heart ; — 
As I must die on thine, 
! beloved as thou art ! 

Ill 

Oh lift me from the grass ! 
I die ! I faint ! I fail ! 
Let thy love in kisses rain 
On my lips and eyelids pale. 
My cheek is cold and white, alas ! 
My heart beats loud and fast ; — 
Oh ! press it to thine own again, 
Where it will break at last. 



[ ISO ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



h3 

as t-j 

5. t^ 



2. ri 



:? '^. 5' 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

LEGHORN; PISA 
INTRODUCTORY 

JT 'Y 'AT> Shelleifs powers been less innately poetic 
£ M and less intuitive, they must have been silenced 
by this time, since his productions hitherto had 
fallen upon an indifferent or hostile world. But from 
this time forward, for the short remainder of his life, he 
was never to be without the assurance of finding sympa- 
thy from an inner circle of appreciative friends. Early 
in the year 1820, the Shelley s established themselves at 
Pisa ; " so Pisa, you see, has become a little nest of singing 
birds,''"' Mrs. Shelley writes in the following year. 

In the main, it was the magnetic personality of Shelley 
himself that made it so. Lord Byron had left Ravenna 
and taken a large and handsome palace across the Arno 
and nearly opposite, for the sole purpose of renewing his 
companionship with Shelley ; the same desire drew Thomas 
Medwin, Shelley's second cousin and collaborator at the 
age of fifteen in some verses called " The Wandering 
Jeiv.'''' Medwin?s fiends. Captain and Mrs. Edicard 
Williams, charmed by Medwiii's tales of his cousin''s in- 
spired boyhood, his genius, his virtues, and his sitfferings, 
came from Switzerland and took apartments in the same 
house with Shelley, while tlieir friend Captain Edward 
[153] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Trelawney soon made a welcome addition to the group. 
Besides these English friends, there were the famous 
Italians Vacca the physician, Sgricci the improvisatore, 
and the Greek prince Mavrocordato, For a time, 
S1ielley''s admiration of ByroriS powers, which he con- 
ceived to he far greater than his own, rather stifled his 
genius and discouraged himfi^om undertahing any long 
work. But to Prince Mavrocordato, and his part in the 
liberation of Greece, is directly due the " Hellas,'''' — a 
poem in which Shelley once more seized the opportunity 
to return to his favorite theme, the regeneration of man- 
kind. Trelawney, of knight-erroMt aspect, dark, hand- 
some and moustachised^'' appealed to his imagination, 
and it is the idealized portrait of Trelawney that appears 
in the " Fragments of an Unfinished Drama,'''' as the 
pirate of the enchanted isle : — 

" He 7€as as is the sun in his fierce youths 
As terrible and lovely as is the tempest." 

As for the new friends, the W'lU'iamses, — who speedily 
become " Ned""^ and '^ Jane'''' in the familiarity of daily 
intercourse, — the lives of the four now become so closely 
hound in community of interests that henceforth one can 
hardly he considered apart from the others. Of the lady 
of the " Epipsychidion^'' mention already has been made 
in the Introduction. 

At Pisa, as usual, Shelley found for himself an out- 
of-door retreat whej-e he could he alone with his muse. 
Betzveen Pisa and the sea-coast a dense forest, known as 
the Pineta, stretches for miles. Trelawney in his " Recol- 
lections'''' has told how, after much search, he discovered 
[ 154 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Shelley ther^e one day among the pines ^ near a deep pool 
of dark, glimmering ivater, by the side of which lay a 
hat, books, and hose papers. 

" The strong light streamed through th^ opening of the trees. 
One of the pines, undermined by the water, had fallen into it. 
Under its lee, arid nearly hidden, sat the poet gazing on the dark 
beneath, and so lost in his bardish reverie that he did not hear 
my footstep. . . . He fvas writing verses on a guitar. I picked 
up a fragment, but could only make out the first two lines : — 

' Ariel to Miranda — Take 
This slave of music.' " 

In the suynmer, Pisa was exchanged for Leghorn with 
its country walks through " lanes xvhose myrtle hedges zvere 
the bowers of fireflies,^'' and where the skylarks sang as 
they sing only for the poet ; or for the Baths of San 
Giuliano at the foot of the Pisan Mountains. " The Boat 
on the Serchio '"* preserves not only a picture of the life at 
the Baths, but also some fundamental features of Shelley'' s 
thought. Surely no " atheist '' he who wrote : — 

" All rose to do the task He set to each 
Who shaped us to His ends and not our own^ 

Here news reached them of the death of John Keats at 
Rome. Sympathy with a brother-poet whose treatment 
by the world had been so like his ozvn, and admiration of 
the supreme poetical gifts now forever silenced, were the 
inspiration of the ^' Adonais,'''' by Shelley himself modestly 
appraised as " the least imperfect of my compositions.'''' 

The poem is almost as inuch concerned with Shelley 
himself as with Keats. No one fails to recognize his ozon 
self-portrait in stanzas XXXI-XXXIV, and the last 
[155] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

stanza seems almost a premonition of his own fate so 
swiftly to follow : — 

" The breath whose might I have invoked in song 

Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 

Whose sails were never to the tempest given. 

The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
1 am borne darkly ^ fearfully , afar ! 

Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven^ 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 

Leghoen, July 12, 1820. 
• ••••• 

We are just now occupying the Gisbornes^ house ^ at 
Leghorn^ and I have turned Mr. Reveley^s^ workshop 
into my study. The Libeccio ^ here howls like a chorus 
of fiends all day^ and the weather is just pleasant, — not at 
all hot, the days being very misty, and the nights divinely 
serene. I have been reading with much pleasure the 
Greek romances. The best of them is the pastoral of 
Longus; but they are all very entertaining, and would be 
delightful if they were less rhetorical and ornate. I am 
translating in ottava rima the " Hymn to Mercury ''"' of 
Homer. Of course my stanza precludes a literal transla- 
tion. My next effort will be that it should be legible — a 
quality much to be desired in translations. 

1 Mr. and Mrs. Gisborue were old friends and had offered their house 
for the use of the Shelleys during their absence in England. 

2 Henry Reveley, an engineer and the son of Mrs. Gisborne by a former 
marriage. 

^ Libeccio is the hot wind which blows from the southwest at this part 
of the Italian coast. 

[156] 



THE YEARS 18S0 AND 1821 

I am told that the magazines, etc.^ blaspheme me at a 
great rate. I wonder why I write verses, for nobody 
reads them. It is a kind of disorder, for which the regu- 
lar practitioners prescribe what is called a torrent of abuse, 
but I fear that can hardly be considered a specific. 

I enclose two additional poems, to be added to those 
printed at the end of " Prometheus/' and I send them to 
you for fear Oilier might not know what to do in case he 
objected to some expressions in the fifteenth and six- 
teenth stanzas ^ ; and that you would do me the favour to 
insert an asterisk or asterisks with as little expense to the 
sense as may be. The other poem I send to you, not to 
make two letters. 

LETTER TO MAEIA GISB0ENE2 

Leghorn, July 1, 1820. 

The spider spreads her webs, whether she be 

In poet''s tower, cellar, or barn, or tree ; 

The silk-worm in the dark green mulberry leaves 

His winding sheet and cradle ever weaves ; 

So I, a thing whom moralists call worm. 

Sit spinning still round this decaying form. 

From the fine threads of rare and subtle thought — 

No net of words in garish colours wrought 

To catch the idle buzzers of the day — 

But a soft cell where, when that fades away, 

1 rifteenth and sixteentli stanzas of the Ode to Liberty : Oilier is tte 
publisher. — Ed. 

2 This poem was written from Mrs. Gisborne's own house. The pre- 
ceding prose letter serves to explain many of the allusions of the poem. 

[157] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Memory may clothe in wings my living name 
And feed it with the asphodels of fame, 
Which in those hearts which must remember me 
Grow, making love an immortality. 

Whoever should behold me now, I wist, 
Would think I were a mighty mechanist, 
Bent with sublime Archimedean art 
To breathe a soul into the iron heart 
Of some machine portentous, or strange gin, 
Which by the force of figured spells might win 
Its way over the sea, and sport therein ; 
For round the walls are hung dread engines, such 
As Yulcan never wrought for Jove to clutch 
Ixion or the Titan : — or the quick 
Wit of that man of God, St. Dominic, 
To convince Atheist, Turk, or Heretic, 
Or those in philanthropic council met, 
Who thought to pay some interest for the debt 
They owed to Jesus Christ for their salvation, 
By giving a faint foretaste of damnation 
To Shakespeare, Sidney, Spenser, and the rest 
Who made our land an island of the blest. 
When lamp-like Spain, who now relumes her fire 
On Freedom^s hearth, grew dim with Empire : — 
With thumbscrews, wheels, with tooth and spike and 

jag, 
Which fishers found under the utmost crag 
Of Cornwall and the storm-encompassed isles, 
Where to the sky the rude sea rarely smiles 
[158] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Unless in treacherous wrath, as on the morn 
When the exulting elements in scorn 
Satiated with destroyed destruction, lay- 
Sleeping in beauty on their mangled prey, 
As panthers sleep ; — and other strange and dread 
Magical forms the brick floor overspread, — 
Proteus transformed to metal did not make 
More figures, or more strange; nor did he take 
Such shapes of unintelligible brass, 
Or heap himself in such a horrid mass 
Of tin and iron not to be understood ; 
And forms of unimaginable wood. 
To puzzle Tubal Cain and all his brood : 
Great screws, and cones, and wheels, and grooved 

blocks. 
The elements of what will stand the shocks 
Of wave and wind and time. — Upon the table 
More knacks and quips there be than I am able 
To catalogise in this verse of mine : — 
A pretty bowl of wood — not full of "wine. 
But quicksilver ; that dew which the gnomes drink 
When at their subterranean toil they swink. 
Pledging the demons of the earthquake, who 
Eeply to them in lava — cry " halloo ! '' 
And call out to the cities o^er their head, — 
Eoofs, towers, and shrines, the dying and the dead. 
Crash through the chinks of earth — and then all quaff 
Another rouse, and hold their sides and laugh. 
This quicksilver no gnome has drunk — within 
The walnut bowl it lies, veined and thin, 
[159] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

In colour like the wake of light that stains 
The Tuscan deep, when from the moist moon rains 
The inmost shower of its white fire — the breeze 
Is still — blue heaven smiles over the pale seas. 
And in this bowl of quicksilver — for I 
Yield to the impulse of an infancy 
Outlasting manhood — I have made to float 
A rude idealism of a paper boat : — 
A hollow screw with cogs — Henry will know 
The thing I mean and laugh at me, — if so, 
He fears not I should do more mischief. — Next 
Lie bills and calculations much perplext, 
With steam-boats, frigates, and machinery quaint 
Traced over them in blue and yellow paint. 
Then comes a range of mathematical 
Instruments, for plans nautical and statical ; 
A heap of rosin, a queer broken glass 
With ink in it; — a china cup that was 
(What it will never be again, I think,) 
A thing from which sweet lips were wont to drink 
The liquor doctors rail at — and which I 
Will quaff in spite of them — and when we die 
We '11 toss up who died first of drinking tea, 
And cry out, — " heads or tails ? " where'er we be. 
Near that a dusty paint box, some odd hooks, 
A half-burnt match, an ivory block, three books. 
Where conic sections, spherics, logarithms, 
To great Laplace, from Saunderson and Sims, 
Lie heaped in their harmonious disarray 
Of figures, — disentangle them who may. 
[160] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Baron de Tott's Memoirs beside them lie, 
And some odd volumes of old chemistry. 
Near those a most inexplicable thing, 
With lead in the middle — I 'm conjecturing 
How to make Henry understand ; but no — 
I ''11 leave, as Spenser says, " with many mo," 
This secret in the pregnant womb of time. 
Too vast a matter for so weak a rhyme. 

And here like some weird Archimage sit I, 
Plotting dark spells and devilish enginery, 
The self-impelling steam-wheels of the mind 
Which pump up oaths from clergymen, and grind 
The gentle spirit of our meek Eeviews 
Into a powdery foam of salt abuse, 
Euffling the ocean of their self-content ; — 
I sit — and smile or sigh as is my bent, 
But not for them — Libeccio rushes round 
With an inconstant and an idle sound, 
I heed him more than them. The thunder-smoke 
Is gathering on the mountains, like a cloak 
Folded athwart their shoulders broad and bare ; 
The ripe corn under the undulating air 
Undulates like an ocean ; — and the vines 
Are trembling wide in all their trellised lines — 
The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill 
The empty pauses of the blast ; — the hill 
Looks hoary through the white electric rain. 
And from the glens beyond, in sullen strain, 
The interrupted thunder howls ; above 
11 [ 161 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

One chasm of heaven smiles^ like the eye of Love 
On the unquiet world ; — while such things are, 
How could one worth your friendship heed the war 
Of worms? the shriek of the world^s carrion jays, 
Their censure, or their wonder, or their praise ? 

You are not here ! the quaint witch Memory sees 
In vacant chairs, your absent images. 
And points where once you sat, and now should be 
But are not. — I demand if ever we 
Shall meet as then we met ; — and she replies, 
Yeiling in awe her second-sighted eyes ; 
" I know the past alone — but summon home 
My sister Hope, — she speaks of all to come/^ 
But I, an old diviner, who knew well 
Every false verse of that sweet oracle. 
Turned to the sad enchantress once again. 
And sought a respite from my gentle pain, 
In citing every passage o^er and o'er 
Of our communion — how on the sea-shore 
We watched the ocean and the sky together, 
Under the roof of blue Italian weather ; 
How I ran home through last year's thunder-storm. 
And felt the transverse lightning linger warm 
Upon my cheek — and how we often made 
Peasts for each other, where good will outweighed 
The frugal luxury of our country cheer. 
As well it might, were it less firm and clear 
Than ours must ever be ; — and how we spun 
A shroud of talk to hide us from the sun 
[ 162 j 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Of this familiar life, which seems to be 
But is not^ — or is but quaint mockery 
Of all we would believe, and sadly blame 
The jarring and inexplicable frame 
Of this wrong world : — and then anatomise 
The purposes and thoughts of men whose eyes 
Were closed in distant years ; — or widely guess 
The issue of the earth's great business. 
When we shall be as we no longer are — 
(Like babbling gossips safe, who hear the war 
Of winds, and sigh, but tremble not) ; — or how 
You listened to some interrupted flow 
Of visionary rhyme, — in joy and pain 
Struck from the inmost fountains of my brain. 
With little skill perhaps ; — or how we sought 
Those deepest wells of passion or of thought 
Wrought by wise poets in the waste of years. 
Staining their sacred waters with our tears ; 
Quenching a thirst ever to be renewed ! 
Or how I, wisest lady ! then indued 
The language of a land which now is free. 
And winged with thoughts of truth and majesty, 
Flits round the tyrant's sceptre like a cloud. 
And bursts the peopled prisons, and cries aloud, 
" My name is Legion!'''' — that majestic tongue 
Which Calderon over the desert flung 
Of ages and of nations ; and which found 
An echo in our hearts, and with the sound 
Startled oblivion. Thou wert then to me 
As is a nurse — when inarticulately 
[ 163 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

A child would talk as its grown parents do. 

If living winds the rapid clouds pursue. 

If hawks chase doves through the ethereal way, 

Huntsmen the innocent deer, and beasts their prey, 

Why should not we rouse with the spirit^s blast 

Out of the forest of the pathless past 

These recollected pleasures ? ^ 

You are now 
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow 
At once is deaf and loud, and on the shore 
Vomits its wrecks, and still howls on for more. 
Yet in its depth what treasures ! You will see 
That which was Godwm,^ — greater none than he 
Though fallen — and fallen on evil times — to stand 
Among the spirits of our age and land, 
Before the dread tribunal of to come 
The foremost, — while Eebuke cowers pale and dumb. 
You will see Coleridge ^ — he who sits obscure 
In the exceeding lustre, and the pure 
Intense irradiation of a mind. 
Which, with its own internal lightning blind. 
Flags wearily through darkness and despair — 
A cloud-encircled meteor of the air, 
A hooded eagle among blinking owls. 

1 In the preceding Summer, at Mrs. Gisborne's suggestion, Shelley be- 
gan the study of Spanish, and they joined in a daily reading of Galderon. 
Shelley, at that time, had some thought of translating some of Calderon's 
plays into English. 

2 Godwin, author of " Political Justice" and father-in-law of Shelley. 

3 Shelley's acquaintance with Coleridge was but slight. 

[ 164 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

You will see Hunt ^ — one of those happy souls 

"Which are the salt of the earthy and without whom 

This world would smell like what it is — a tomb ; 

Who is_, what others seem ; his room no doubt 

Is still adorned by many a cast from Shout, 

With graceful flowers tastefully placed about ; 

And coronals of bay from ribbons hung, 

And brighter wreaths in neat disorder flung ; 

The gifts of the most learned among some dozens 

Of female friends, sisters-in-law, and cousins. 

And there is he with his eternal puns. 

Which beat the dullest brain for smiles, like duns 

Thundering for money at a poet's door ; 

Alas ! it is no use to say, ^'^ I 'm poor ! " 

Or oft in graver mood, when he will look 

Things wiser than were ever read in book. 

Except in Shakespeare^s wisest tenderness. 

You will see Hogg,^ — and I cannot express 

His virtues, — though I know that they are great^ 

Because he locks, then barricades the gate 

Within which they inhabit ; — of his wit 

And wisdom, you '11 cry out when you are bit. 

He is a pearl within an oyster shell. 

One of the richest of the deep ; — and there 

Is English Peacock ^ with his mountain fair 

Turned into a Flamingo ; — that shy bird 

That gleams i^ the Indian air. Have you not heard 

1 James Leigh Hunt, the most intimate of Shelley's friends. 

2 Thomas Jefferson Hogg, a schoolfellow and later Shelley's biographer. 
^ Thomas Love Peacock, to whom most of the Letters from Italy are 

addressed. 

[165] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

When a man marries^ dies, or turns Hindoo, 
His best friends hear no more of him ? — but you 
Will see him, and will like him too, I hope. 
With the milk-white Snowdonian Antelope 
Matched with this cameleopard — his fine wit 
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it ; 
A strain too learned for a shallow age, 
Too wise for selfish bigots ; let his page 
Which charms the chosen spirits of the time, 
Fold itself up for the serener clime 
Of years to come, and find its recompense 
In that just expectation. — Wit and sense. 
Virtue and human knowledge ; all that might 
Make this dull world a business of delight. 
Are all combined in Horace Smith.^ — And these, 
With some exceptions, which I need not tease 
Your patience by descanting on, — are all 
You and I know in London. 

I recall 
My thoughts, and bid you look upon the night. 
As water does a sponge, so the moonlight 
Eills the void, hollow, universal air — 
What see you ? — unpavilioned heaven is fair 
Whether the moon, into her chamber gone. 
Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan 
Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep ; 
Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, 
Piloted by the many-wandering blast, 

1 One of the authors of " Rejected Addresses." 

[166] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

And the rare stars rush through them dim and fast : — 

All this is beautiful in every land. — 

But what see you beside ? — a shabby stand 

Of hackney coaches — a brick house or wall 

Fencing some lonely court, white with the scrawl 

Of our unhappy politics ; — or worse — 

A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse 

Mixed with the watchman^s, partner of her trade. 

You must accept in place of serenade — 

Or yellow-haired Pollonia murmuring 

To Henry, some unutterable thing. 

/ see a chaos of green leaves and fruit 
Built round dark caverns, even to the root 
Of the living stems that feed them, in whose bowers 
There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers ; 
Beyond, the surface of the unsickled corn 
Trembles not in the slumbering air, and borne 
In circles quaint, and ever-changing dance. 
Like winged stars the fire-flies flash and glance. 
Pale in the open moonshine, but each one 
Under the dark trees seems a little sun, 
A meteor tamed, a fixed star gone astray 
From the silver regions of the milky way ; — 
Afar the contadino^s song is heard, 
Kude, but made sweet by distance — and a bird 
"Which cannot be the nightingale,^ and yet 
I know none else that sings so sweet as it 

1 Because it is now July, and nightingales are not supposed to sing later 
than June in Italy, save when the weather is cool and their haunts shady. 

[ 167 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

At this late hour ; — and then all is still. 
Now Italy or London, which you will ! 

Next Winter you must pass with me ; I ^11 have 
My house by that time turned into a grave 
Of dead despondence and low-thoughted care. 
And all the dreams which our tormentors are ; 
Oh ! that Hunt, Hogg, Peacock, and Smith were there. 
With every thing belonging to them fair ! — 
We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek ; 
And ask one week to make another week 
As like his father, as I ^m unlike mine, 
Which is not his fault, as you may divine. 
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine. 
Yet let^s be merry : we ''11 have tea and toast; 
Custards for supper, and an endless host 
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies. 
And other such lady-like luxuries, — 
Feasting on which we will philosophise ! 
And we '11 have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood. 
To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. 
And then we '11 talk ; — what shall we talk about ? 
Oh ! there are themes enough for many a bout 
Of thought-entangled descant ; — as to nerves — 
With cones and parallelograms and curves 
I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare 
To bother me — when you are with me there. 
And they shall never more sip laudanum, 
From Helicon or Himeros ^ ; — well, come, 

1 "l/tepos (river Himera) is, with a shade of difference, a synonyme of Love. 

[ 168 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

And in despite of God and of the devil, 

We ■'11 make our friendly philosophic revel 

Outlast the leafless time ; till buds and flowers 

Warn the obscure inevitable hours, 

Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew ; — 

" To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new/-' 



THE CLOUD 

I BEING fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, 

From the seas and the streams ; 
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid 

In their noonday dreams. 
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken 

The sweet buds every one, 
When rocked to rest on their mother-'s breast. 

As she dances about the sun. 
I wield the flail of the lashing hail, 

And whiten the green plains under. 
And then again I dissolve it in rain. 

And laugh as I pass in thunder. 

I sift the snow on the mountains below, 

And their great pines groan aghast ; 
And all the night ^t is my pillow white. 

While I sleep in the arms of the blast. 
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, 

Lightning my pilot sits, 
In a cavern under is fettered the Thunder, 

It struggles and howls at fits ; 
[169] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, 

This pilot is guiding me, 
Lured by the love of the Genii that move 

In the depths of the purple sea ; 
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills. 

Over the lakes and the plains. 
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, 

The Spirit he loves remains ; 
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile. 

Whilst he is dissolving in rains. 

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes. 

And his burning plumes outspread. 
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack. 

When the morning star shines dead, 
As on the jag of a mountain crag. 

Which an earthquake rocks and swings, 
An eagle alit one moment may sit 

In the light of its golden wings. 
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath. 

Its ardours of rest and of love. 
And the crimson pall of eve may fall 

From the depth of heaven above. 
With wings folded I rest, on my airy nest. 

As still as a brooding dove. 

That orbed maiden with white fire laden. 

Whom mortals call the Moon, 
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor. 

By the midnight breezes strewn ; 
[ 170] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

And wherever the beat of her unseen feet^ 

Which only the angels hear. 
May have broken the woof of my tent-'s thin roof. 

The stars peep behind her and peer; 
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee. 

Like a swarm of golden bees, 
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, 

Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas. 
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, 

Are each paved with the moon and these. 

I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone. 

And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl ; 
The Volcanoes are dim, and the Stars reel and swim, 

When the Whirlwinds my banner unfurl. 
Erom cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape. 

Over a torrent sea. 
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, 

The mountains its columns be. 
The triumphal arch through which I march 

With hurricane, fire, and snow. 
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair. 

Is the million-coloured bow ; 
The Sphere-fire above its soft colours wove. 

While the moist Earth was laughing below. 

I am the daughter of Earth and Water, 

And the nursling of the Sky ; 
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores ; 

I change, but I cannot die. 
[171 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

For after the rain when with never a stain, 

The pavilion of heaven is bare, 
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams, 

Build up the blue dome of air, 
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph. 

And out of the caverns of rain, 
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, 

I arise and unbuild it again. 



TO A SKYLAEK 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert. 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest 
Like a cloud of fire ; 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O^er which clouds are brightning. 
Thou dost float and run ; 
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun. 
[ 172 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight; 
Like a star of heaven,, 

In the broad daylight 
Thou art. unseen^ but yet I hear thy shrill delight, 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere, 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear, 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud. 
As, when night is bare. 

From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 

What thou art we know not ; 

What is most like thee ? 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see. 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

Like a poet hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 
Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 
[ 173 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace-tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower : 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 
Its aerial hue 
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the 
view : 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
Bj warm winds deflowered. 
Till the scent it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged 
thieves : 

Sound of vernal showers 

On the twinkling grass, 
Eain-awakened flowers, 
All that ever was 
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass : 

Teach us, sprite or bird, 

What sweet thoughts are thine : 
I have never heard 
Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 
[174] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Chorus Hymeneal, , 

Or triumphal chaunt^ 
Matched with thine, would be all 
But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 

Wliat shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Languor cannot be : 
Shadow of annoyance 
Never came near thee : 
Thou lovest : but ne^er knew love's sad satiety. 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 
Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 

We look before and after. 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught ; 
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest 
thought. 

[ ns ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Yet if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear; 
If we were things born 

Not to shed a tear, 
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound. 
Better than all treasures 
That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow. 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 



ODE TO LIBERTY 

Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner torn but flying 
Streams like a tbunder-storm against tbe wind. 

Bykon. 

I 

A GLORIOUS people vibrated again 

The lightning of the nations : Liberty 
Erom heart to heart, from tower to tower, o^er Spain, 

Scattering contagious fire into the sky. 
Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay, 
And, in the rapid plumes of song. 
Clothed itself, sublime and strong ; 
[176] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

As a young eagle soars the morning clouds among, 
Hovering in verse o'er its accustomed prey ; 
Till from its station in the heaven of fame 
The Spirit's whirlwind rapt it, and the ray 
Of the remotest sphere of living flame 
Which paves the void was from behind it flung, 
As foam from a ship's swiftness, when there came 
A voice out of the deep : I will record the same. 

II 

'^ The Sun and the serenest Moon sprang forth : 

The burning stars of the abyss were hurled 

Into the depths of heaven. The daedal earth, 

That island in the ocean of the world. 
Hung in its cloud of all-sustaining air : 
But this divinest universe 
Was yet a chaos and a curse, 
Por Thou wert not : but, power from worst producing 
worse. 
The spirit of the beasts was kindled there. 

And of the birds, and of the watery forms, — 
And there was war among them, and despair 
Within them, raging without truce or terms : 
The bosom of their violated nurse 

Groaned, for beasts warred on beasts, and worms on 

worms. 
And men on men ; each heart was as a hell of storms. 



12 



[ 177 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

m 

'^ Man, the imperial shape, then multiplied 
His generations under the pavilion 
Of the Sun^s throne : palace and pyramid, 

Temple and prison, to many a swarming million, 
Were, as to mountain- wolves their ragged caves. 
This human living multitude 
Was savage, cunning, blind, and rude. 
For Thou wert not ; but o^er the populous solitude. 
Like one fierce cloud over a waste of waves 

Hung Tyranny ; beneath, sate deified 
The sister-pest, congregator of slaves 
Into the shadow of her pinions wide. 
Anarchs and priests who feed on gold and blood. 
Till with the stain their inmost souls are dyed, 
Drove the astonished herds of men from every side. 

IV 

" The nodding promontories, and blue isles. 

And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves 
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles 

Of favouring heaven : from their enchanted caves 
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody. 
On the unapprehensive wild 
The vine, the corn, the olive mild. 
Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled; 
And, like unfolded flowers beneath the sea. 

Like the mane's thought dark in the infantas brain. 
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be, 
[ 178 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein 
Of Parian stone ; and, yet a speechless child, 
Yerse murmured, and Philosophy did strain 
Her lidless eyes for Thee ; when o^er the ^gean main 



" Athens arose : a city such as vision 

Builds from the purple crags and silver towers 
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision 

Of kingliest masonry : the ocean-floors 
Pave it ; the evening sky pavilions it ; 
Its portals are inhabited 
By thunder-zoned winds, each head 
Within its cloudy wings with sunfire garlanded, 
A divine work ! Athens diviner yet 

Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will 
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; 
For Thou wert, and thine all-creative skill 
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead 
In marble immortality, that hill 
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle, 

VI 

'' Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay 
Immovably unquiet, and for ever 

It trembles, but it cannot pass away ! 
The voices of thy bards and sages thunder 
With an earth-awakening blast 
Through the caverns of the past ; 
[179] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Eeligion veils her eyes ; Oppression shrinks aghast : 
A winged sound of joy, and love, and wonder, 
Which soars where Expectation never flew, 
Bending the veil of space and time asunder ! 

One ocean feeds the clouds, and streams, and dew; 
One sun illumines heaven ; one spirit vast 
With life and love makes chaos ever new. 
As Athens doth the world with thy delight renew. 

YII 

" Then Eome was, and from thy deep bosom fairest. 
Like a wolf-cub from a Cadmsean Msenad, 
She drew the milk of greatness, though thy dearest 

From that Elysian food was yet unweaned ; 
And many a deed of terrible uprightness 
By thy sweet love was sanctified ; 
And in thy smile, and by thy side. 
Saintly Camillus lived, and firm Attilius died. 

But when tears stained thy robe of vestal whiteness. 

And gold profaned thy capitolian throne. 
Thou didst desert, with spirit- winged lightness. 
The senate of the tyrants : they sunk prone 
Slaves of one tyrant : Palatinus sighed 
Faint echoes of Ionian song ; that tone 
Thou didst delay to hear, lamenting to disown. 

VIII 

" From what Hyrcanian glen or frozen hill. 
Or piny promontory of the Arctic main. 
Or utmost islet inaccessible, 

Didst thou lament the ruin of thy reign, 
[180] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Teaching the woods and waves, and desert rocks, 
And every Naiad'*s ice-cold urn. 
To talk in echoes sad and stem, 
Of that sublimest lore w^hich man had dared unlearn ? 
For neither didst thou watch the wizard flocks 

Of the Scald^s dreams, nor haunt the Druid^s sleep. 
What if the tears rained through thy shattered locks 
Were quickly dried? for thou didst groan, not 
weep 
When from its sea of death to kill and burn. 
The Galilean serpent forth did creep. 
And made thy world an undistinguishable heap. 

IX 

" A thousand years the Earth cried, ' Where art thou ? ' 
And then the shadow of thy coming fell 
On Saxon Alfred's olive-cinctured brow: 

And many a warrior-peopled citadel. 
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep. 
Arose in sacred Italy, 
Frowning o'er the tempestuous sea 
Of kings, and priests, and slaves, in tower-crowned 
majesty ; 
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep 

And burst around their walls, like idle foam, 
Whilst from the human spirit^s deepest deep 
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb 
Dissonant arms ; and Art, which cannot die. 
With divine wand traced on our earthly home 
Fit imagery to pave heaven''s everlasting dome. 
[181] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

X 

^^ Thou huntress swifter than the Moon ! thou terror 
Of the world's wolves ! thou bearer of the quiver, 
Whose sunlike shafts pierce tempest-winged Error, 

As light may pierce the clouds when they dissever 
In the calm regions of the orient day ! 

Luther caught thy wakening glance : 
Like lightning, from his leaden lance 
Eeflected, it dissolved the visions of the trance 
In which, as in a tomb, the nations lay ; 

And England''s prophets hailed thee as their queen 
In songs whose music cannot pass away. 

Though it must flow for ever. Not unseen. 
Before the spirit-sighted countenance 

Of Milton, didst thou pass from the sad scene 
Beyond whose night he saw, with a dejected mien. 

XI 

" The eager Hours and unreluctant Years 
As on a dawn-illumined mountain stood. 
Trampling to silence their loud hopes and fears, 

Darkening each other with their multitude, 
And cried aloud. Liberty ! Indignation 
Answered Pity from her cave ; 
Death grew pale within the grave. 
And Desolation howled to the destroyer. Save ! 
When, like heaven's sun girt by the exhalation 

Of its own glorious light, thou didst arise. 
Chasing thy foes from nation unto nation 
[ 182 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Like shadows : as if day had cloven the skies 
At dreaming midnight o^er the western wave, 
Men started, staggering with a glad surprise, 
Under the lightnings of thine unfamiliar eyes. 

XII 
^^ Thou heaven of earth ! what spells could pall thee then. 
In ominous eclipse ? a thousand years 
Bred from the slime of deep oppression's den. 

Dyed all thy liquid light with blood and tears. 
Till thy sweet stars could weep the stain away ; 
How like Bacchanals of blood 
Eound France, the ghastly vintage, stood 
Destruction's sceptred slaves, and Folly's mitred brood ! 
When one, like them, but mighter far than they. 

The Anarch of thine own bewildered powers 
Eose : armies mingled in obscure array. 

Like clouds with clouds, darkening the sacred bowers 
Of serene heaven. He, by the past pursued, 
Bests ^vith those dead but unforgotten hours 
Whose ghosts scare victor kings in their ancestral 
towers. 

XIII 

" England yet sleeps : was she not called of old ? 
Spain calls her now, as with its thrilling thunder 
Yesuvius wakens ^tna, and the cold 

Snow-crags by its reply are cloven in sunder : 
O'er the lit waves every iEolian isle 
From Pithecusa to Pelorus 
Howls, and leaps, and glares in chorus : 
[ 183 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

They cry, ^Be dim, ye lamps of heaven suspended o'er us!* 
Her chains are threads of gold, she need but smile, 

And they dissolve ; but Spain^s were links of steel. 
Till bit to dust by virtue^s keenest file. 
Twins of a single destiny ! appeal 
To the eternal years enthroned before us. 
In the dim "West ; impress us from a seal. 
All ye have thought and done ! Time cannot dare conceal. 

XIV 

" Tomb of Arminius ! render up thy dead. 

Till, like a standard from a watch-tower's staff, 
His soul may stream over the tyrant^s head ! 

Thy victory shall be his epitaph ! 
Wild Bacchanal of truth's mysterious wine. 
King-deluded Germany, 
His dead spirit lives in thee ! 
Why do we fear or hope ? thou art already free ! 
And thou, lost Paradise of this divine 

And glorious world ! thou flowery wilderness ! 
Thou island of eternity ! thou shrine 

Where desolation clothed with loveliness. 
Worships the thing thou wert ! Italy, 
Gather thy blood into thy heart ; repress 
The beasts who make their dens thy sacred palaces. 

XV 

'' Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name 

Of King into the dust ! or write it there. 
So that this blot upon the page of fame 

Were as a serpent's path, which the light air 
[ 184 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Erases, and the flat sands close behind ! 
Ye the oracle have heard : 
Lift the victory-flashing sword, 
And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word. 
Which weak itself as stubble, yet can bind 

Into a mass, irrefragably firm. 
The axes and the rods which awe mankind ; 
The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm 
Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred ; 
Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term. 
To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm. 

XVI 

'^ Oh, that the wise from their bright minds would kindle 

Such lamps within the dome of this dim world, 
That the pale name of Priest might shrink and dwindle 

Into the hell from which it first was hurled, 
A scoff of impious pride from fiends impure ; 
Till human thoughts might kneel alone 
Each before the judgment-throne 
Of its own aweless soul, or of the Power unknown ! 
Oh, that the words which make the thoughts obscure 

From which they spring, as clouds of glimmering dew 
Prom a white lake blot heaven^s blue portraiture. 
Were stript of their thin masks and various due 
And frowns and smiles and splendours not their own. 
Till in the nakedness of false and true 
They stand before their Lord, each to receive its due ! 

[185] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XVII 
" He who taught man to vanquish whatsoever 

Can be between the cradle and the grave 
Crowned him the King of Life. Oh, vain endeavour ! 

If on his own high will, a willing slave, 
He has enthroned the oppression and the oppressor. 
What if earth can clothe and feed 
Amplest millions at their need, 
And power in thought be as the tree within the seed ? 
Or what if Art, an ardent intercessor. 

Driving on fiery wings to Nature^s throne, 
Checks the great mother stooping to caress her, 
And cries : ' Give me, thy child, dominion 
Over all height and depth '' ? if Life can breed 

New wants, and Wealth, from those who toil and groan 
Eend, of thy gifts and hers, a thousand-fold for one ? 

XVIII 

^' Come Thou ! but lead out of the inmost cave 

Of man^s deep spirit, as the mornhig-star 
Beckons the Sun from the Eoan wave, 

Wisdom. I hear the pennons of her car 
Self-moving, like cloud charioted by flame ; 
Comes she not, and come ye not, 
Eulers of eternal thought, 
I'o judge, with solemn truth, lifers ill-apportioned lot ? 
Blind Love, and equal Justice, and the Fame 

Of what has been, the Hope of what will be? 
Liberty ! if such could be thy name 
[ 186] 






.Ott. ' 



:s s o 








THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Wert thou disjoined from these, or they from thee : 
If thine or theirs were treasures to be bought 
By blood or tears, have not the wise and free 
Wept tears, and blood like tears ? " The solemn 
harmony 

XIX 

Paused, and the Spirit of that mighty singing 

To its abyss was suddenly withdrawn ; 
Then, as a wild swan, when sublimely winging 
Its path athwart the thunder-smoke of dawn. 
Sinks headlong through the aerial golden light 
On the heavy sounding plain, 
When the bolt has pierced its brain ; 
As Summer clouds dissolve, unburthened of their rain ; 
As a far taper fades with fading night, 

As a brief insect dies with dying day, 
My song, its pinions disarrayed of might. 
Drooped ; o^er it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain. 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner^s head in their tempestuous play. 

Naples, Jan. 26, 1819.1 

Since you last heard from me, we have been to see 
Pompeii, and are waiting now for the return of Spring 
weather, to visit, first, Paestum, and then the islands; 

1 This letter is inserted here, out of its chronological order, as fur- 
nishing comment and explanation of allusions in the Ode to Naples 
following. The poem was written more than a year later. 

[ 187 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

after which we shall return to Eome. I was astonished 
at the remains of this city ; I had no conception of any- 
thing so perfect yet remaining. My idea of the mode of 
its destruction was this : — First,, an earthquake shattered 
it, and unroofed almost all its temples, and split its 
columns ; then a rain of light, small pumice stones fell ; 
then torrents of boiling water, mixed with ashes, filled up 
all its crevices. A wide, flat hill, from which the city 
was excavated, is now covered by thick woods, and you 
see the tombs and the theatres, the temples and the houses, 
surrounded by the uninhabited wilderness. We entered 
the town from the side towards the sea, and first saw two 
theatres ; one more magnificent than the other, strewn 
with the ruins of the white marble which formed their 
seats and cornices, wrought with deep, bold sculpture. 
In the front, between the stage and the seats, is the cir- 
cular space, occasionally occupied by the chorus. The 
stage is very narrow, but long, and divided from this 
space by a narrow enclosure parallel to it, I suppose for 
the orchestra. , On each side are the consuls'* boxes, and 
below, in the theatre at Herculaneum, were found two 
equestrian statues of admirable workmanship, occupying 
the same place as the great bronze lamps did at Drury 
Lane. The smallest of the theatres is said to have been 
comic, though I should doubt. From both you see, as 
you sit on the seats, a prospect of the most wonderful 
beauty. 

You then pass through the ancient streets; they are 
very narrow, and the houses rather small, but all con- 
structed on an admirable plan, especially for this climate. 

[188 J 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The rooms are built round a court, or sometimes two, 
according to the extent of the house. In the midst is 
a fountain, sometimes surrounded with a portico, sup- 
ported on fluted columns of white stucco; the floor is 
paved with mosaic, sometimes wrought in imitation of 
vine leaves, sometimes in quaint figures, and more or 
less beautiful, according to the rank of the inhabitant. 
There were paintings on all, but most of them have been 
removed to decorate the royal museums. Little winged 
figures, and small ornaments of exquisite elegance, yet 
remain. There is an ideal life in the forms of these 
paintings of an incomparable loveliness, though most are 
evidently the work of very inferior artists. It seems as 
if, from the atmosphere of mental beauty which sur- 
rounded them, every human being caught a splendour 
not his own. In one house you see how the bed-rooms 
were managed ; — a small sofa was built up, where the 
cushions were placed ; two pictures, one representing 
Diana and Endymion, the other Venus and Mars, decorate 
the chamber ; and a little niche, which contains the statue 
of a domestic god. The floor is composed of a rich 
mosaic of the rarest marbles, agate, jasper, and porphyry ; 
it looks to the marble fountain and the snow-white 
columns, whose entablatures strew the floor of the portico 
they supported. The houses have only one story, and the 
apartments, though not large, are very lofty. A great 
advantage results from this, wholly unknown in our 
cities. The public buildings, whose ruins are now forests 
as it were of white fluted columns, and which then sup- 
ported entablatures, loaded with sculptures, were seen on 
[ 189 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

all sides over the roofs of the houses. This was the ex- 
cellence of the ancients. Their private expenses were 
comparatively moderate ; the dwelling of one of the chief 
senators of Pompeii is elegant indeed, and adorned with 
most beautiful specimens of art, but small. But their 
public buildings are everywhere marked by the bold and 
grand designs of an unsparing magnificence. In the little 
town of Pompeii (it contained about twenty thousand 
inhabitants), it is wonderful to see the number and the 
grandeur of their public buildings. Another advantage, 
too, is that, in the present case, the glorious scenery around 
is not shut out, and that, unlike the inhabitants of the 
Cimmerian ravines of modern cities, the ancient Pom- 
peians could contemplate the clouds and the lamps of 
heaven; could see the moon rise high behind Vesuvius, 
and the sun set in the sea, tremulous with an atmosphere 
of golden vapour, between Inarime and Misenum. 

We next saw the temples. Of the temple of ^scula- 
pius little remains but an altar of black stone, adorned 
with a cornice imitating the scales of a serpent. His 
statue in terra-cotta, was found in the cell. The temple 
of Isis is more perfect. It is surrounded by a portico 
of fluted columns, and in the area around it are two 
altars, and many ceppi for statues; and a little chapel 
of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most exquisite 
proportion; its panels are adorned with figures in bas- 
relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most 
delicate and perfect that can be conceived. They are 
Egyptian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has 
harmonised all the unnatural extravagances of the original 
[ 190 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

conception into the supernatural loveliness of his country^s 
genius. They scarcely touch the ground with their feet, 
and their wind- uplifted robes seem in the place of wings. 
The temple in the midst, raised on a high platform, and 
approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paint- 
ingSj some of which we saw in the museum at Portici. 
It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a 
pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of white 
stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it. 

Thence through other porticos and labyrinths of walls 
and columns (for I cannot hope to detail everything to 
you), we came to the Forum. This is a large square, 
surrounded by lofty porticos of fluted columns, some 
broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under 
them. The temple of Jupiter, of Yenus, and another 
temple, the Tribunal, and the Hall of Public Justice, 
with their forests of lofty columns, surround the Porum. 
Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size (for, whether 
they supported equestrian statues, or were the altars of 
the temple of Yenus, before which they stand, the guide 
could not tell) occupy the lower end of the Porum. At 
the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands 
the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico 
we sat, and pulled out our oranges, and figs, and bread, 
and medlars (sorry fare, you will say), and rested to eat. 
Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and between 
the multitudinous shafts of the sunshining columns was 
seen the sea, reflecting the purple heaven of noon above it, 
and supporting, as it were, on its line the dark lofty 
mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly deep, and 
[191 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

tinged towards their summits with streaks of new-fallen 
snow. Between was one small green island. To the right 
was Caprese, Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind 
was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumes 
of thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was some- 
times darted into the clear dark sky, and fell in little 
streaks along the wind. Between Vesuvius and the nearer 
mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the main line of 
the loftiest Apennines, to the east. The day was radiant 
and warm. Every now and then we heard the subter- 
ranean thunder of Vesuvius ; its distant deep peals seemed 
to shake the very air and light of day, which interpene- 
trated our frames, with the sullen and tremendous sound. 
This scene was what the Greeks beheld (Pompeii, you 
know, was a Greek city). They lived in harmony with 
nature ; and the interstices of their incomparable columns 
were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty 
which animates this glorious universe to visit those whom 
it inspired. If such was Pompeii, what was Athens ? 
What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Par- 
thenon, and the temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and 
the Winds ? The islands and the ^Egean sea, the moun- 
tains of Argolis, and the peaks of Pindus and Olympus, 
and the darkness of the Boeotian forests interspersed ? 

Prom the Porum we went to another public place; a 
triangular portico, half inclosing the ruins of an enormous 
temple. It is built on the edge of the hill overlooking 
the sea. A That black point is the temple. In the apex 
of the triangle stands an altar and a fountain, and before 
the altar once stood the statue of the builder of the por- 
[ 192 ] 




■< -2 



2. ^ 

d 1^ 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

tico. Returning hence^ and following the consular road, 
we came to the eastern gate of the city. The walls are of 
enormous strength^ and inclose a space of three miles. 
On each side of the road beyond the gate are built the 
tombs. How unlike ours ! They seem not so much 
hiding-places for that which must decay^ as voluptuous 
chambers for immortal spirits. They are of marble^, radi- 
antly white; and two, especially beautiful, are loaded 
with exquisite bas-reliefs. On the stucco-wall that in- 
closes them are little emblematic figures of a relief exceed- 
ingly low, of dead and dying animals, and little winged 
genii, and female forms bending in groups in some funeral 
office. The higher reliefs represent, one a nautical sub- 
ject, and the other a Bacchanalian one. Within the cell 
stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes more. 
It is said that paintings were found within; which are 
now, as has been everything moveable in Pompeii, re- 
moved, and scattered about in royal museums. These 
tombs were the most impressive things of all. The wild 
woods surround them on either side ; and along the broad 
stones of the paved road which divides them, you hear the 
late leaves of Autumn shiver and rustle in the stream of 
the inconstant wind, as it were, like the step of ghosts. 
The radiance and magnificence of these dwellings of the 
dead, the white freshness of the scarcely finished marble, 
the impassioned or imaginative life of the figures which 
adorn them, contrast strangely with the simplicity of the 
houses of those who were living when Vesuvius over- 
whelmed them. 

I have forgotten the amphitheatre, which is of great 
13 [ 193 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

magnitude, though much inferior to the Coliseum. I 
now understand why the Greeks were such great poets; 
and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, for the 
harmony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform excel- 
lence, of all their works of art. They lived in a perpetual 
commerce with external nature, and nourished themselves 
upon the spirit of its forms. Their theatres w^ere all open 
to the mountains and the sky. Their columns, the ideal 
types of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, 
admitted the light and wind ; the odour and the freshness 
of the country penetrated the cities. Their temj)les were 
mostly upaithric ; and the flying clouds, the stars, or the 
deep sky, was seen above. 0, but for that series of 
wretched wars which terminated in the Eoman conquest of 
the world ; but for the Christian religion, which put the 
finishing stroke on the ancient system; but for those 
changes that conducted Athens to its ruin, — to what an 
eminence might not humanity have arrived ! 

In a short time I hope to tell you something of the 
museum of this city. 

You see how ill I follow the maxim of Horace, at least 
in its literal sense : " nil admirari ^' — which I sliould say, 
"prope res est una^^ — to prevent there ever being any- 
thing admirable in the world. Fortunately Plato is of my 
opinion; and I had rather err with Plato than be right 
with Horace. 



[ 194 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 
ODE TO NAPLES 1 

EPODE I a 

I STOOD within the city disinterred ^ ; 

And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls 
Of spirits passing through the streets ; and heard 

The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals 
Thrill through those roofless halls ; 
The oracular thunder penetrating shook 

The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke — 

I felt^ but heard not : — through white columns glowed 
The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood^ 
A plane of light between two Heavens of azure : 

Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre 
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure 
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure \ 

But every living lineament was clear 

As in the sculptor's thought ; and there 
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine. 

Like Winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow. 

Seemed only not to move and grow 
Because the crystal silence of the air 

Weighed on their life ; even as the Power divine 

Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine. 

1 The xiutlior has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii 
and Baise with the enthusiasm excited hy the intelligence of the proclama- 
tion of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of 
picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which de- 
picture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected 
with the scene of this animating event. — Shelley's Note. 

2 Pompeii. 

[ 195 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

EPODE II a 

Then gentle winds arose 
With many a mingled close 
Of wild ^olian sound and mountain-odour keen ; 
And where the Baian ocean 
Welters with airlike motion. 
Within, above, around its bowers of starry green. 
Moving the sea-flowers in those purple caves 
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere 
Floats o'er the Elysian realm. 
It bore me, like an Angel, o^er the waves 
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air 
No storm can overwhelm. 
I sailed, where ever flows 
Under the calm Serene 
A spirit of deep emotion 
From the unknown graves 
Of the dead kings of Melody.^ 
Shadowy Aornus darkened o'er the helm 
The horizontal ether ; heaven stript bare 
Its deptlis over Elysium, where the prow 
Made the invisible water white as snow ; 
From that Typhsean mount, Inarime ^ 

There streamed a sunlight vapour, like the standard 
Of some ethereal host ; 
Whilst from all the coast. 
Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered 

1 Homer and Virgil. 

2 The island- of Ischia. 

[ 196 ] 



r-- "^ — 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Over the oracular woods and divine sea 

Prophesyings which grew articulate — 

They seize me — I must speak them — be they fate ! 

STROPHE a 1 

Naples ! thou heart of men which ever pantest 

Naked^ beneath the lidless eye of heaven ! 
Elysian City, which to calm enchantest 

The mutinous air and sea : they round thee, even 

As sleep round Love, are driven! 
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise 

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained ! 
Bright altar of the bloodless sacrifice. 

Which armed Victory offers up unstained 

To Love, the flower-enchained ! 
Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, 
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free. 

If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail, 
Hail^ hail, all hail ! 

STROPHE /3 2 

Thou youngest giant birth 

Which from the groaning earth 
Leap^st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale ! 

Last of the Intercessors 

Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors 
Pleadest before God's love ! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail. 

Wave thy lightning lance in mirth 

Nor let thy high heart fail, 

[ 197 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors, 
With hurried legions move ! 
Hail, hail, all hail 1 

ANTISTEOPHE a 1 

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme 

Freedom and thee ? thy shield is as a mirror 
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam 

To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer ; 
A new Actseon's error 
Shall theirs have been — devoured by their own hounds. 

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk 
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds ! 

Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk 

Aghast she pass from the earth's disk : 
Fear not, but gaze — for freemen mightier grow. 
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe ; 

If Hope and Truth and Justice may avail. 

Thou shalt be great — All hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE yS 2 

From Freedom^s form divine. 

From Nature's inmost shrine. 
Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil : 

O^er Euin desolate. 

O'er Falsehood's fallen state. 
Sit thou sublime, unawed ; be the Destroyer pale ! 

And equal laws be thine. 

And winged words let sail, 
[198] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Freighted with truth even from the throne of God : 
That wealthy surviving fate. 
Be thine. — All hail ! 



ANTISTROPHE a 7 

Didst thou not start to hear Spaiu^s thrilling psean 

From land to land re-echoed solemnly. 
Till silence became music ? From the ^sean ^ 
To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 
Starts to hear thine ! The sea 
Which paves the desert streets of Yenice laughs 

In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan 
By moonlight, spells ancestral epitaphs. 
Murmuring, where is Doria ? fair Milan, 

"Within whose veins long ran J 

The viper^s ^ palsying venom, lifts her heel 
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal 
(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail) 
Art Thou of all these hopes. — hail ! 

ANTISTROPHE ^ 7 

Florence ! beneath the sun. 

Of cities fairest one. 
Blushes within her bower for Freedom^s expectation : 

From eyes of quenchless hope 

Eome tears the priestly cope, 
As ruling once by power, so now by admiration, 

An athlete stript to run 

From a remoter station 

1 ^sea, the island of Circe. 

* The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. 

[199] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Por the high prize lost on Philippi's shore : — 
As then Hope^ Truths and Justice did avail. 
So now may Eraud and Wrong ! hail ! 

EPODE I ^ 

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Eorms 

Arrayed against the ever-living Gods ? 
The crash and darkness of a thousand storms 
Bursting their inaccessible abodes 

Of crags and thunder-clouds ? 
See ye the banners blazoned to the day, 

Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride ? 
Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, 

The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide 
With iron light is dyed. 
The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions 

Like chaos o''er creation, uncreating ; 
An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions 
And lawless slaveries, -■ — down the aerial regions 
Of the white Alps, desolating, 
Famished wolves that bide no waiting. 
Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory. 
Trampling our columned cities into dust. 
Their dull and savage lust 
On Beauty^s corse to sickness satiating — 
They come ! The fields they tread look black and hoary 
With fire — from their red feet the streams run gory ! 

EPODE II ^ 

Great Spirit, deepest Love ! 
Which rulest and dost move 
[ 200 ] 



^ 



^ ^ o 

^ E ?3 



^^ 




i-i 

-3 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

All things which live and are, within the Italian shore ; 
Who spread est heaven around it. 
Whose woods, rocks_, waves, surround it ; 
Who sittest in thy star, o^'er ocean^s western floor, 
Spirit of Beauty ! at whose soft command 

The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison 
Erom the Earth^s bosom chill ; 
bid those beams be each a blinding brand 

Of lightning ! bid those showers be dews of poison ! 
Bid the Earth's plenty kill ! 
Bid thy bright Heaven above. 
Whilst light and darkness bound it. 
Be their tomb who planned 
To make it ours and thine ! 
Or, with thine harmonising ardours fill 
And raise thy sons, as o^er the prone horizon 
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire — 
Be man^s high hope and unextinct desire. 
The instrument to work thy will divine ! 

Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, 
And frowns and fears from Thee, 
Would not more swiftly flee 
Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds. — 
Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine 
Thou yieldest or withholdest. Oh, let be 
This city of thy worship ever free ! 
August 25, 1820.1 

1 During this Summer, under the rule of Ferdinand I, a much more 
orderly condition had been maintained than for a long time before. 

[ 201 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 
AUTUMN: A DIRGE 



The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing, 
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying, 

And the year 
On the earth, her deathbed, in a shroud of leaves dead. 
Is lying. 

Come, months, come away. 

From November to May, 

In your saddest array ; 

Follow the bier 

Of the dead cold year. 
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre. 

II 

The chill rain is falling, the nipt worm is crawling. 
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling 

For the year; 
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone 
To his dwelling. 

Come, months, come away ; 

Put on white, black, and grey ; 

Let your light sisters play — 

Ye, follow the bier 

Of the dead cold year. 
And make her grave green with tear on tear. 



[ 202 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



THE TOWER OF FAMINE i 

Amid the desolation of a city, 
Which was the cradle, and is now the grave 
Of an extinguished people, so that pity 
Weeps o'er the shipwrecks of oblivion's wave. 
There stands the Tower of Famine. It is built 

Upon some prison homes, whose dwellers rave 

For bread, and gold, and blood ; pain, linked to guilt, 

Agitates the light flame of their hours. 

Until its vital oil is spent or spilt. 

There stands the pile, a tower amid the towers 
And sacred domes ; each marble-ribbed roof. 
The brazen-gated temples, and the bowers 

Of solitary wealth ; the tempest-proof 

Pavilions of the dark Italian air, 

Are by its presence dimmed — they stand aloof. 

And are withdrawn — so that the world is bare, — 
As if a spectre, wrapt in shapeless terror, 
Amid a company of ladies fair 

Should glide and glow, till it became a mirror 
Of all their beauty, — and their hair and hue. 
The life of their sweet eyes, with all its error. 
Should be absorbed, till they to marble grew. 

^ The prison of XJgolino, whose story is told by Dante, — Liferno, 
XXXIII, — stiU stood in Shelley's time, but exists no longer. It was built 
on the Piazza de' Cavalicri, Pisa. 

[ 203 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



EPIPSYCHIDION 

YERSES ADDRESSED TO THE NOBLE AND UNFOR- 
TUNATE LADY, EMILIA V 

NOW IMPRISONED IN THE CONVENT OP ST. ANNE, PISA 

L'anima amante si slancia fuori del creato, e si crea nell' infinito un 
Moudo tutto per essa, diverse assai da questo oscuro e pauroso baratro.l 

Her own words. 

My Song^ I fear that thou wilt find but few 
Who fitly shall conceive thj reasoning. 
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain; 
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring 
Thee to base company (as chance may do). 
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain, 
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again. 
My last delight ! tell them that they are dull, 
And bid them own that thou art beautiful. 

ADVERTISEMENT 

The Writer of the following Lines died at Florence, as 
he was preparing for a voyage to one of the wildest of the 
Sporades, which he had bought, and where he had fitted 
up the ruins of an old building, and where it was his hope 
to have realised a scheme of life, suited perhaps to that 
happier and better world of which he is now an inhabitant, 
but hardly practicable in this. His life was singular ; less 
on account of the romantic vicissitudes which diversified 

^ The loving soul launches beyond creation and creates for itself in the 
infinite a world all its own, far difi'erent from this obscure and terrifying 
golf. — Translation of W. M. Rossetti. 

[ 204 ] 



»2 



^3 



o 5. I 

^ I s 

» A * 



i <- 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

it, than the ideal tinge which it received from his own 
character and feelings. The present Poem, like the " Yita 
Nuova^'' of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain 
class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the 
circumstances to which it relates; and to a certain other 
class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect 
of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which 
it treats. Not but that, gran vergogna sarehhe a colui, 
die rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o cli colore rettorico, 
e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal 
veste, in guisa die avissero verace intendimento} 

The present poem appears to have been intended by the 
Writer as the dedication to some longer one. The stanza 
on the opposite page is almost a literal translation from 
Dante's famous Canzone 

Voiy cW intendendo, il terzo del moveie, etc. 

The presumptuous application of the concluding lines to 
his own composition will raise a smile at the expense of 
my unfortunate friend : be it a smile not of contempt, but 
pity. S. 

EPIPSYCHIDION 

Sweet Spirit ! Sister of that orphan one. 
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on, 
In my heart's temple I suspend to thee 
These votive wreaths of withered memory. 

1 A quotation from Dante, thus rendered Ly W. M, Rossetti : " Great 
were his shame who should rhyme anything under a garb of metaphor or 
rhetorical colour, and then, being asked, should be incapable of stripping his 
words of this garb so that they might have a veritable meaning." 

[ 205 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Poor captive bird ! who^ from thy narrow cage, 
Pourest such music, that it might assuage 
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee. 
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody ; 
This song shall be thy rose : its petals pale 
Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale ! 
But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom, 
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom. 

High, spirit-winged Heart ! who dost for ever 
Beat thine unfeeling bars with vain endeavour, 
Till those bright plumes of thought, in which arrayed 
It over- soared this low and worldly shade. 
Lie shattered ; and thy panting, wounded breast 
Stains with dear blood its unmaternal nest ! 
I weep vain tears : blood would less bitter be. 
Yet poured forth gladlier, could it profit thee. 

Seraph of Heaven ! too gentle to be human. 
Veiling beneath that radiant form of Woman 
All that is insupportable in thee 
Of light, and love, and immortality ! 
Sweet Benediction in the eternal Curse ! 
Veiled Glory of this lampless Universe ! 
Thou Moon beyond the clouds ! Thou living Form 
Among the Dead ! Thou Star above the Storm ! 
Thou Wonder, and thou Beauty, and thou Terror ! 
Thou Harmony of Nature^s art ! Thou Mirror 
In whom, as in the splendour of the sun, 
All shapes look glorious which thou gazest on ! 
[ 206 ] 




o 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Ay, even the dim words which obscure thee now 

Flash, lightning-like with unaccustomed glow. 

I pray thee that thou blot from this sad song 

All of its much mortality and wrong, 

With those clear drops, which start like sacred dew 

Prom the twin lights thy sweet soul darkens through. 

Weeping, till sorrow becomes ecstasy : 

Then smile on it, so that it may not die. 

I never thought before my death to see 
Youth^s vision thus made perfect. Emily, 
I love thee ; though the world by no thin name 
Will hide that love, from its unvalued shame. 
Would we two had been twins of the same mother ! 
Or, that the name my heart lent to another 
Could be a sister's bond for her and thee. 
Blending two beams of one eternity ! 
Yet were one lawful and the other true. 
These names, though dear, could paint not, as is due. 
How beyond refuge I am thine. Ah me ! 
I am not thine : I am a part of thee. 

Sweet Lamp ! my moth-like Muse has burnt its 
wings; 
Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings. 
Young Love should teach Time, in his own grey style. 
All that thou art. Art thou not void of guile, 
A lovely soul formed to be blest and bless ? 
A well of sealed and secret happiness. 
Whose waters like blithe light and music are. 
Vanquished dissonance and gloom ? A Star 
[ 207 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Which moves not in the moving Heavens, alone ? 

A smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone 

Amid rude voices? a beloved light? 

A Solitude, a Eefuge, a Delight ? 

A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play 

Make music on, to soothe the roughest day 

And lull fond Grief asleep ? a buried treasure ? 

A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure ; 

A violet-shrouded grave of Woe ? — I measure 

The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 

And find — alas ! mine own infirmity. 

She met me. Stranger, upon life's rough way. 
And lured me towards sweet Death ; as Night by Day, 
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope, 
Led into light, life, peace. An antelope. 
In the suspended impulse of its lightness. 
Were less ethereally light : the brightness 
Of her divinest presence trembles through 
Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew 
Embodied in the windless Heaven of June 
Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon 
Burns, inextinguishably beautiful : 
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full 
Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops, 
Killing the sense with passion, sweet as stops 
Of planetary music heard in trance. 
In her mild lights the starry spirits dance. 
The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap 
Under the lightnings of the soul — too deep 
[ 208 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 
The glory of her being_, issuing thence,, 
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade 
Of unentangled intermixture, made 
By Love, of light and motion : one intense 
Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, 
Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing 
Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing 
With the unintermitted blood, which there 
Quivers (as in a fleece of snow-like air 
The crimson pulse of living Morn may quiver). 
Continuously prolonged, and ending never. 
Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled 
Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world ; 
Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 
Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress 
And her loose hair ; and where some heavy tress 
The air of her own speed has disentwined. 
The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind ; 
And in the soul a wild odour is felt. 
Beyond the sense, like fiery dews that melt 
Into the bosom of a frozen bud. — 
See where she stands ! a mortal shape indued 
With love and life and light and deity. 
And motion which may change but cannot die ; 
An image of some bright Eternity ; 
A shadow of some golden dream ; a Splendour 
Leaving the third sphere pilotless ; a tender 
Eeflection of the eternal Moon of Love 
Under whose motions lifers dull billows move; 
14 [ 209 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

A Metaphor of Spring and Youth and Morning ; 
A Vision like incarnate April, warning, 
With smiles and tears, Erost the anatomy 
Into his Summer grave. 

Ah, woe is me ! 
What have I dared ? where am I lifted ? how 
Shall I descend, and perish not ? I know 
That Love makes all things equal : I have heard 
By mine own heart this joyous truth averred : 
The spirit of the worm beneath the sod 
In love and worship, blends itself with God. 

Spouse ! Sister ! Angel ! Pilot of the fate 
Whose course has been so starless ! Oh, too late 
Beloved ! Oh, too soon adored, by me ! 
For in the fields of immortality 
My spirit should at first have worshipped thine, 
A divine presence in a place divine ; 
Or should have moved beside it on this earth, 
A shadow of that substance, from its birth ; 
But not as now : — I love thee ; yes, I feel 
That on the fountain of my heart a seal 
Is set, to keep its waters pure and bright 
For thee, since in those tears thou hast delight. 
We — are we not formed, as notes of music are. 
For one another, though dissimilar ; 
Such difference without discord, as can make 
Those sweetest sounds, in which all spirits shake 
As trembling leaves in a continuous air ? 
[ 210 ] 



IV/rONUMENT to John Keats 




— See p. 228. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Thy wisdom speaks in me^ and bids me dare 
Beacon the rocks on which high hearts are wrecked. 
I never was attached to that great sect. 
Whose doctrine is, that each one should select 
Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, 
And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend 
To cold oblivion, though it is in the code 
Of modern morals, and the beaten road 
Which those poor slaves with weary footsteps tread. 
Who travel to their home among the dead 
By the broad highway of the world, and so 
With one chained friend, perhaps a jealous foe, 
The dreariest and the longest journey go. 

True Love in this differs from gold and clay. 
That to divide is not to take away. 
Love is like understanding, that grows bright. 
Gazing on many truths ; ''t is like thy light. 
Imagination ! which from earth and sky. 
And from the depths of human phantasy. 
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills 
The universe with glorious beams, and kills 
Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow 
Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow 
The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates. 
The life that wears, the spirit that creates 
One object, and one form, and builds thereby 
A sepulchre for its eternity ! 

Mind from its object differs most in this : 
Evil from good ; misery from happiness ; 
[211] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

The baser from the nobler ; the impure 
And frail, from what is clear and must endure. 
If you divide suffering and dross, you may 
Diminish till it is consumed away ; 
If you divide pleasure and love and thought. 
Each part exceeds the whole ; and we know not 
How much, while any yet remains unshared, 
Of pleasure may be gained, of sorrow spared : 
This truth is that deep well, whence sages draw 
The unenvied light of hope ; the eternal law 
By which those live to whom this world of life 
Is as a garden ravaged, and whose strife 
Tills for the promise of a later birth 
The wilderness of this elysian earth. 

There was a Being whom my spirit oft 
Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, 
In the clear golden prime of my youth's dawn, 
Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn. 
Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves 
Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves 
Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor 
Paved her light steps ; — on an imagined shore, 
Under the grey beak of some promontory 
She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, 
That I beheld her not. In solitudes 
Her voice came to me through the whispering woods. 
And from the fountains, and the odours deep 
Of flowers, which, like lips murmuring in their sleep 
Of the sweet kisses which had lulled them there, 
[ 212 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Breathed but of her to the enamoured air ; 
And from the breezes whether low or loud^ 
And from the rain of every passing cloud, 
And from the singing of the Summer birds, 
And from all sounds, all silence. In the words 
Of antique verse and high romance, — in form, 
Sound, colour — in whatever checks that storm 
Which with the shattered present chokes the past — 
And in that best philosophy, whose taste 
Makes this cold common hell, our life, a doom 
As glorious as a fiery martyrdom — 
Her Spirit was the harmony of truth. 

Then, from the caverns of my dreamy youth 
I sprang, as one sandalled with plumes of fire. 
And towards the loadstar of my one desire, 
I flitted, like a dizzy moth, whose flight 
Is as a dead leafs in the owlet light. 
When it would seek in Hesper's setting sphere 
A radiant death, a fiery sepulchre, 
As if it were a lamp of earthly flame. — 
But She, whom prayers or tears then could not tame. 
Passed like a God throned on a winged planet. 
Whose burning plumes to tenfold swiftness fan it. 
Into the dreary cone of our life's shade ; 
And as a man with mighty loss dismayed, 
I would have followed, though the grave between 
Yawned like a gulf whose spectres are unseen : 
When a voice said : ^^ O Thou of hearts the weakest, 
The phantom is beside thee whom thou seekest.'* 
[ 213 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Then I — " Where ? '^ the world's echo answered ^^ where ! " 
And in that silence, and in my despair, 
I questioned every tongueless wind that flew 
Over my tower of mourning, if it knew 
Whither 'i was fled, this soul out of my soul ; 
And murmured names and spells which have control 
Over the sightless tyrants of our fate ; 
But neither prayer nor verse could dissipate 
The night which closed on her ; nor uncreate 
That world within this chaos, mine and me. 
Of which she was the veiled Divinity, 
The world I say of thoughts that worshipped her : 
And therefore I went forth, with hope and fear 
And every gentle passion sick to death. 
Feeding my course with expectation's breath, 
Into the wintry forest of our life ; 
And struggling through its error with vain strife. 
And stumbling in my weakness and my haste. 
And half bewildered by new forms, I passed 
Seeking among those untaught foresters 
If I could find one form resembling hers. 
In which she might have masked herself from me. 
There, — One, whose voice was venomed melody 
Sate by a well, under blue nightshade bowers ; 
The breath of her false mouth was like faint flowers. 
Her touch was as electric poison, — flame 
Out of her looks into my vitals came. 
And from her living cheeks and bosom flew 
A killing air, which pierced like honey-dew 
Into the core of my green heart, and lay 
[ 214 ] 



QHELLEY'S Grave in the Protestant 
Cemetery at Rome. 




" The soft sky smiles, — the low wind ichispers near ; 
" T is Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither. 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together.'''' 

— Adonais, p. 242. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Upon its leaves ; until,, as hair grown grey 
O'er a young brow^ they hid its unblown prime 
With ruins of unseasonable time. 

In many mortal forms I rashly sought 
The shadow of that idol of my thought. 
And some were fair — but beauty dies away : 
Others were wise — but honeyed words betray : 
And One was true — oh ! why not true to me ? 
Then, as a hunted deer that could not flee, 
I turned upon my thoughts, and stood at bay, 
Wounded and weak and panting ; the cold day 
Trembled, for pity of my strife and pain. 
When, like a noonday dawn, there shone again 
Deliverance. One stood on my path who seemed 
As like the glorious shape which I had dreamed. 
As is the Moon, whose changes ever run 
Into themselves, to the eternal Sun ; 
The cold chaste Moon, the Queen of Heaven's bright isles. 
Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles. 
That wandering shrine of soft yet icy flame 
Which ever is transformed, yet still the same. 
And warms not but illumines. Young and fair 
As the descended Spirit of that sphere. 
She hid me, as the Moon may hide the night 
From its own darkness, until all was bright 
Between the heaven and earth of my calm mind ; 
And, as a cloud charioted by the wind. 
She led me to a cave in that wild place. 
And sate beside me, with her downward face 
[ 215 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Illiimining mj slumbers, like the Moon 
Waxing and waning o^er Endymion. 
And I was laid asleep, spirit and limb, 
And all my being became bright or dim 
As the Moon^s image in a Summer sea, 
According as she smiled or frowned on me ; 
And there I lay, within a chaste cold bed : 
Alas, I then was nor alive nor dead : — 
For at her silver voice came Death and Life, 
Unmindful each of their accustomed strife, 
Masked like twin babes, a sister and a brother. 
The wandering hopes of one abandoned mother. 
And through the cavern without wings they flew. 
And cried "Away, he is not of our crew/^ 
I wept, and though it be a dream, I weep. 

What storms then shook the ocean of my sleep, 
Blotting that Moon, whose pale and waning lips 
Then shrank as in the sickness of eclipse ; — 
And how my soul was as a lampless sea. 
And who was then its tempest ; and when She, 
The planet of that hour, was quenched, what frost 
Crept o''er those waters, till from coast to coast 
The moving billows of my being fell 
Into a death of ice, immovable ; — 
And then — what earthquakes made it gape and split. 
The white Moon smiling all the while on it. 
These words conceal : — If not, each word would be 
The key of staunchless tears. Weep not for me ! 

[ 216 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

At length, into the obscure forest came 
The Vision I had sought through grief and sliame. 
Athwart that wintry wilderness of thorns 
Flashed from her motion splendour like the morn^s. 
And from her presence life was radiated 
Through the grey earth and branches bare and dead ; 
So that her way was paved, and roofed above 
With flowers as soft as thoughts of budding love ; 
And music from her respiration spread 
Like light, — all other sounds were penetrated 
By the small, still, sweet spirit of that sound. 
So that the savage winds hung mute around ; 
And odours warm and fresh fell from her hair 
Dissolving the dull cold in the frore air : 
Soft as an Incarnation of the Sun, 
Wlien light is changed to love, this glorious One 
Floated into the cavern where I lay. 
And called my spirit, and the dreaming clay 
Was lifted by the thing that dreamed below 
As smoke by fire, and in her beauty^s glow 
I stood, and felt the dawn of my long night 
Was penetrating me with living light : 
I knew it was the Vision veiled from me 
So many years — that it was Emily. 

Twin Spheres of light who rule this passive Earth, 
This world of love, this me ; and into birth 
Awaken all its fruits and flowers, and dart 
Magnetic might into its central heart ; 
And lift its billows and its mists, and guide 
[ 217 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

By everlasting laws, each wind and tide 
To its fit cloud and its appointed cave; 
And lull its storms, each in the craggy grave 
Which was its cradle, luring to faint bowers 
The armies of the rainbow- winged showers ; 
And, as those married lights, which from the towers 
Of Heaven look forth and fold the wandering globe 
In liquid sleep and splendour, as a robe. 
And all their many-mingled influence blend. 
If equal, yet unlike, to one sweet end ; — 
So ye, bright regents, with alternate sway 
Govern my sphere of being, night and day ! 
Thou, not disdaining even a borrowed might ; 
Thou, not eclipsing a remoter light ; 
And, through the shadow of the seasons three, 
Prom Spring to Autumn's sere maturity. 
Light it into the Winter of the tomb, 
Where it may ripen to a brighter bloom! 
Thou too, O Comet beautiful and fierce. 
Who drew the heart of this frail Universe 
Towards thine own ; till, wrecked in that convulsion, 
Alternating attraction and repulsion. 
Thine went astray and that was rent in twain ; 
Oh, float into our azure heaven again ! 
Be there lovers folding-star at thy return ; 
The living Sun will feed thee from its urn 
Of golden fire ; the Moon will veil her horn 
In thy last smiles ; adoring Even and Morn 
Will worship thee with incense of calm breath 
And lights and shadows ; as the star of Death 
[ 218 ] 



"^lOBE. Ill Uffizi Gallery. 



"'All ivorldly thoughts and cares seem to vanish from 
before the sublime emotions such spectacles create/'' 

— See Letter from Florence, p. 243. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

And Birth is worshipped by those sisters wild 
Called Hope and Eear — upon the heart are piled 
Their offerings, — of this sacrifice divine 
A World shall be the altar. 

Lady mine. 
Scorn not these flowers of thonght, the fading birth 
Which from its heart of hearts that -phnt puts forth 
Whose fruit, made perfect by thy sunny eyes. 
Will be as of the trees of Paradise. 
The day is come, and thou wilt fly with me ! 
To whatsoever of dull mortality 
Is mine, remain a vestal sister still ; 
To the intense, the deep, the imperishable, 
Not mine but me, henceforth be thou united 
Even as a bride, delighting and delighted. 
The hour is come : — the destined star has risen 
Which shall descend upon a vacant prison. 
The walls are high, the gates are strong, thick set 
The sentinels — but true love never yet 
Was thus constrained : it overleaps all fence : 
Like lightning, with invisible violence 
Piercing its continents ; like Heaven's free breath. 
Which he who grasps can hold not ; liker Death, 
Who rides upon a thought, and makes his way 
Through temple, tower, and palace, and the array 
Of arms. - More strength has Love than he or they ; 
For he can burst his charnel, and make free 
The limbs in chains, the heart in agony, 
The soul in dust and chaos. 

[ 219 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Emily, 
A ship is floating in the harbour now, 
A wind is hovering o^er the mountain's brow ; 
There is a path on the sea''s azure floor. 
No keel has ever ploughed that path before ; 
The halcyons brood around the foamless isles ; 
The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles ; 
The merry mariners are bold and free : 
Say, my heart's sister, wilt thou sail with me ? 
Our bark is as an albatross, whose nest 
Is a far Eden of the purple east ; 
And we between her wings will sit, while Night 
And Day, and Storm, and Calm, pursue their flight, 
Our ministers, along the boundless sea. 
Treading each other's heels, unheededly. 
It is an isle under Ionian skies. 
Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise, 
And, for the harbours are not safe and good^ 
This land would have remained a solitude 
But for some pastoral people native there. 
Who from the elysian, clear, and golden air 
Draw the last spirit of the age of gold. 
Simple and spirited, innocent and bold. 
The blue ^gean girds this chosen home. 
With ever-changing sound and light and foam. 
Kissing the sifted sands, and caverns hoar ; 
And all the winds wandering along the shore 
Undulate with the undulating tide. 
There are thick woods where sylvan forms abide ; 
And many a fountain, rivulet, and pond, 
[ 220 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

As clear as elemental diamond^ 
Or serene morning air ; and far beyond. 
The mossy tracks made by tbe goats and deer 
(Which the rough shepherd treads but once a year). 
Pierce into glades,, caverns, and bowers, and halls 
Built round with ivy, which the waterfalls 
Illumining, with sound that never fails 
Accompany the noonday nightingales ; 
And all the place is peopled with sweet airs. 
The light clear element which the isle wears 
Is heavy with the scent of lemon-flowers. 
Which floats like mist laden with unseen showers 
And falls upon the eyelids like faint sleep ; 
And from the moss violets and jonquils peep, 
And dart their arrowy odour through tlie brain 
Till you might faint with that delicious pain. 
And every motion, odour, beam, and tone. 
With that deep music is in unison : 
Which is a soul within the soul — they seem 
Like echoes of an antenatal dream. 
It is an isle 'twixt Heaven, Air, Earth, and Sea, 
Cradled, and hung in clear tranquillity ; 
Bright as that wandering Eden, Lucifer, 
Washed by the soft blue Oceans of young air. 
It is a favoured place. Eamine or blight, 
Pestilence, war and earthquake, never light 
Upon its mountain-peaks ; blind vultures, they 
Sail onward far upon their fatal way : 
The winged storms, chanting their thunder-psalm 
To other lands, leave azure chasms of calm 
[ 221 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Over this isle, or weep themselves in dew, 
From which its fields and woods ever renew 
Their green and golden immortality. 
And from the sea there rise, and from the sky 
There fall, clear exhalations, soft and bright, 
Yeil after veil, each hiding some delight, 
Which sun or moon or zephyr draws aside. 
Till the islets beauty, like a naked bride 
Glowing at once with love and loveliness. 
Blushes and trembles at its own excess : 
Yet, like a buried lamp, a Soul no less 
Burns in the heart of this delicious isle. 
An atom of th' Eternal, whose own smile 
Unfolds itself, and may be felt, not seen 
O'er the grey rocks, blue waves, and forests green. 
Filling their bare and void interstices. — 

But the chief marvel of the wilderness 
Is a lone dwelling, built by whom or how 
None of the rustic island-people know : 
'T is not a tower of strength, though with its height 
It overtops the woods ; but, for delight. 
Some wise and tender Ocean- King, ere crime 
Had been invented, in the world's young prime, 
Eeared it, a wonder of that simple time. 
An envy of the isles, a pleasure-house 
Made sacred to his sister and his spouse. 
It scarce seems now a wreck of human art. 
But, as it were, Titanic ; in the heart 
Of Earth having assumed its form, then grown 
[ 222 ] 



T>ASILICA of San Vitale, 
Ravenna. 




See Letter from Ravenna, p. 244. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Out of the mountains, from the living stone. 

Lifting itself in caverns light and high : 

For all the antique and learned imagery 

Has been erased, and in the place of it 

The ivy and the wild-vine interknit 

The volumes of their many twining stems ; 

Parasite flowers illume with dewy gems 

The lampless halls, and when they fade, the sky 

Peeps through their winter-woof of tracery 

With moonlight patches, or star atoms keen, 

Or fragments of the day^s intense serene ; — 

Working mosaic on their Parian floors. 

And, day and night, aloof, from the high towers 

And terraces, the Earth and Ocean seem 

To sleep in one another's arms, and dream 

Of waves, flowers, clouds, woods, rocks, and all that we 

Kead in their smiles, and call reality. 

This isle and house are mine, and I have vowed 
Thee to be lady of the solitude. — 
And I have fitted up some chambers there 
Looking towards the golden eastern air. 
And level with the living winds, which flow 
Like waves above the living waves below. — 
I have sent books and music there, and all 
Those instruments with which high spirits call 
The future from its cradle, and the past 
Out of its grave, and make the present last 
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot die, 
Folded within their own eternity. 
[ 223 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Our simple life wants little, and true taste 
Hires not the pale drudge Luxury, to waste 
The scene it would adorn, and therefore still. 
Nature with all her children, haunts the hill. 
The ring-dove, in the embowering ivy, yet 
Keeps up her love-lament, and the owls flit 
Eound the evening tower, and the young stars glance 
Between the quick bats in their twilight dance ; 
The spotted deer bask in the fresh moonlight 
Before our gate, and the slow, silent night 
Is measured by the pants of their calm sleep. 
Be this our home in life, and when years heap 
Their withered hours, like leaves, on our decay. 
Let us become the overhanging day, 
The living soul of this Elysian isle. 
Conscious, inseparable, one. Meanwhile 
"We two will rise, and sit, and walk together, 
Under the roof of blue Ionian weather. 
And wander in the meadows, or ascend 
The mossy mountains, where the blue heavens bend 
With lightest winds to touch their paramour ; 
Or linger, where the pebble-paven shore. 
Under the quick, faint kisses of the sea 
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy, — 
Possessing and possest by all that is 
Within that calm circumference of bliss. 
And by each other, till to love and live 
Be one : — or, at the noontide hour, arrive 
Where some old cavern hoar seems yet to keep 
The moonhght of the expired night asleep, 
[ 224 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Through which the awakened day can never peep ; 
A veil for our seclusion_, close as Night's, 
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights ; 
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain 
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn agani. 
And we will talk, until thought's melody 
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die 
In words, to live again in looks, which dart 
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart. 
Harmonising silence without a sound. 
Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound, 
And our veins beat together ; and our lips. 
With other eloquence than words, eclipse 
The soul that burns between them, and the wells 
Which boil under our being's inmost cells. 
The fountains of our deepest life, shall be 
Confused in passion's golden purity. 
As mountain-springs under the morning sun. 
We shall become the same, we shall be one 
Spirit within two frames, oh ! wherefore two ? 
One passion in twhi-hearts, which grows and grew. 
Till like two meteors of expanding flame. 
Those spheres instinct with it become the same, 
Touch, mingle, are transfigured ; ever still 
Burning, yet ever inconsumable : 
In one another's substance finding food. 
Like flames too pure and light and unimbued 
To nourish their bright lives with, baser prey. 
Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away : 
One hope within two wills, one will beneath 
15 [ 225 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, 

One heaven, one hell, one immortality. 

And one annihilation. Woe is me ! 

The winged words on which my soul would pierce 

Into the height of lovers rare Universe, 

Are chains of lead around its flight of fire — 

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire ! 



TO 



I 

One word is too often profaned 

Eor me to profane it. 
One feeling too falsely disdained 

Eor thee to disdain it. 
One hope is too like despair 

For prudence to smother, 
And pity from thee more dear 

Than that from another. 

II 
I can give not what men call love. 

But wilt thou accept not 
The worship the heart lifts above 

And the Heavens reject not. 
The desire of the moth for the star. 

Of the night for the morrow. 
The devotion to something afar 

From the sphere of our sorrow ? 

1 Perhaps these verses may be taken to epitomize the whole motive of 
" Epipsychidion " and similar poems, — "the desire of the moth for the 
star," etc., — not the desire of possession, but of worship. — Ed. 

[ 226 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 



TO 



Music, when soft voices die, 
Yibrates in the memory ; 
Odours, when sweet violets sicken. 
Live within the sense they quicken. 

Eose leaves, when the rose is dead. 
Are heaped for the beloved's bed ; 
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, 
Love itself shall slumber on. 



ADONAIS : 

AN ELEGY ON" THE DEATH OE JOHN KEATS, 
AUTHOR OF "ENDYMION," "HYPERION," Etc. 

^Acrrrjp irpiv fikv lAa/xTres ivl ^woicnv *E(3os * 
NCi/ Se Oavwv Aa^uTrets "EcrTrepos iv (fiOifxevoiS' 

Plato.^ 

PREFACE 
^dpfxaKov rjXOc, BiW, ttotI crov (rro/xa, cfidpfMaKOv cTSe?. 
ricos rev TOt? ;>^etAeo-crt TroreSpajae, kovk iyXvKavOr) ; 

1 " I would rather have written Shelley's ' Music, when soft voices die * 
than all that Beaumont and Fletcher ever wrote, together with all of their 
contemporaries, excepting Shakespeare." — Walter Savage Landor. 

2 Translated by Shelley in a poem called 

" To Stella." 
" Thou wert the Morning Star among the living 
Ere thy fair light had fled : — 
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
New splendour to the dead." 

[ 227 ] 



WITH SHELLEY LN ITALY 

Ttg Be ySpoTos Toa-aovTOiv dva/xepos, rj Kepda-au toi, 
H hovvai XaXeovTL to (fidpfxaKov ; €Kcf)vy€V w8av. 

MoscHus^ Epitaph. Bion.^ 

It is my intention to subjoin to the London edition of this 
poem a criticism upon the claims of its himented object to 
be classed among the writers of the highest genius who 
have adorned our age. My known repugnance to the 
narrow prhiciples of taste on which several of his earlier 
compositions were modelled prove at least that I am an 
impartial judge. I consider the fragment of Hyperion, as 
second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of 
the same years. 

John Keats died at Eome of a consumption^ in his 

twenty-fourth year, on the of 1821; and was 

buried in the romantic and lonely cemetery of the Protes- 
tants in that city, under the pyramid which is the tomb of 
Cestius, and the massy walls and towers, now mouldering 
and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Eome. 
The cemetery is an open space among the ruins covered in 
Winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in 
love with death, to think that one should be buried in so 
sweet a place. 



^ " Bion, a potion came to thy mouth which soothed like a potion. 
How did it touch thy lips and not change its bitter to sweetness ? 
"Who so savage of men as to mix or give thee the poison 
Even as thou didst speak ? Fled he not from the voice of thy singing ? 
Translation op Professor Mahaffy. 



[ 228 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

ADONAIS 

I 

I WEEP for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Oh weep for Adonais ! though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers, 
And teach them thine own sorrow ! Say : ^' With me 
Died Adonais; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity ! " 

II 

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay. 
When thy Son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes, 
' Mid listening Echoes, in her Paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 
Eekindled all the fading melodies. 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath. 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of death. 

Ill 
Oh weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! 
Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep 
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
[ 229 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

For he is gone, where all things wise and fair 
Descend ; — oh^ dream not that the amorous Deep 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
Death feeds on his mute voice^ and laughs at our despair. 



IV 

Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania ! — He died, 
Who was the Sire of an immortal strain, 
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country^s pride, 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide. 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified. 
Into the gulf of death ; but his clear Sprite 
Yet reigns o'er earth ; the third among the sons of light. 



Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb ; 
And happier they their happiness who knew. 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 
In which suns perished ; others more sublime. 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 
And some yet live, treading the thorny road. 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene abode. 

[ 230 ] 




2 o 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

XXIII 

• ••••• 

Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt Urania ; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way, 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 

• ••••• 

XXV 

In the death chamber for a moment Death 

Shamed by the presence of that living Might 

Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 

Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 

Flashed through those limbs, so late her dear delight. 

" Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless. 

As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 

Leave me not ! '' cried Urania : her distress 
Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her vain 
caress. 

XXVI 

" Stay yet awhile ! speak to me once again ! 

Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ; 

And in my heartless breast and burning brain 

That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive. 

With food of saddest memory kept alive. 

Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 

Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 

All that I am to be as thou now art ! 
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 
[ 231 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XXVII 

" O gentle child,, beautiful as thou wert, 
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
Too soon^ and with weak hands though mighty heart 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den ? 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear ? 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle, when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere 
The monsters of lifers waste had fled from thee like deer. 

XXVIII 

" The herded wolves, bold only to pursue ; 
The obscene ravens, clamorous o^er the dead ; 
The vultures to the conqueror's banner true 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed. 
And whose wings rain contagion ; — how they fled 
When like Apollo, from his golden bow, 
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 
And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow. 
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 

XXIX 

" The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn. 
And the immortal stars awake again; 
So is it in the world of living men : 
[ 2S2 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
Making earth bare and veiling heaven, and when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit^s awful night/'' 

XXX 

Thus ceased she : and the mountain shepherds came. 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent ; 
The Pilgrini of Eternity,^ whose fame 
Over his living head like Heaven is bent. 
An early but enduring monument. 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow ; from her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong,^ 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 

XXXI 

Midst others of less note, came one frail Form,^ 
A phantom among men ; companionless 
As the last cloud of an expiring storm 
Whose thunder is its knell ; he, as I guess. 
Had gazed on Nature^s naked loveliness, 
Actaeon-like, and now he fled astray 
With feeble steps o^er the world^'s wilderness. 
And his own thoughts, along that rugged way. 
Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their 
prey. 

1 Byron. 2 ]\roore. ^ Shelley. 

[ 233 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XXXII 

A pardlike Spirit beautiful and swift — 
A Love in desolation masked ; — a Power 
Girt round with weakness ; — it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 
It is a dying lamp^ a falling shower, 
A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak 
Is it not broken ? On the withering flower 
The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may break. 

XXXIII 
His head was bound with pansies overblown, 
And faded violets, white, and pied, and blue; 
And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew 
Yet dripping with the forest^s noonday dew, 
Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart 
Shook the weak hand that grasped it ; of that crew 
He came the last, neglected and apart : 
A. herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. 

XXXIV 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan 
Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle band 
Who in another's fate now wept his own; 
As in the accents of an unknown land. 
He sung new sorrow, sad Urania scanned 
[ 234 ] 



B 



EHIND Shelley's 
house iu Pisa. 




See Letter from Pisa, p. '248. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The Stranger's mien, and murmured : *' Who art thou ? " 
He answered not^ but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow, 

Which was like Cain's or Christ's — oh, that it should 
be so ! 

XXXV 
What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? ^ 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white deathbed. 
In mockery of monumental stone. 
The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
If it be He, who, gentlest of the wise. 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one ; 
Let me not vex, with inharmonious sighs. 

The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 

XXXVI 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh ! 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe ? 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape the magic tone 
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong. 
But what was howling in one breast alone. 
Silent with expectation of the song, 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 

1 The doubt formerly existing about this allusion seems to be settled 
positively by a letter from Browning to Forman, July 2, 1877 : " Certainly 
Leigh Hunt is alluded to iu the thirty -fifth stanza of 'Adonais.' I heard 
so from John Forster, an earlier friend of his. The ' dark mantle thrown 
athwart the brow' is a characteristic touch." 

[ 235 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XXXVII 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
Live ! fear uo heavier chastisement from me. 
Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! 
But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! 
And ever at thy season be thou free 
To spill the venom when thy fangs overflow : 
Eemorse and Self-contempt shall cling to thee ; 
Hot Shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 

XXXYIII 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from these carrion kites that scream below ; 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. — 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
Through time and change, unquenchably the same, 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of shame. 

XXXIX 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life — 
''T is we who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife, 
[ 236 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

And in mad trance, strike with our spirit^s knife 
Invulnerable nothings. — JFe decay 
Like corpses in a charnelj fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day, 
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay. 



XL 

He has outsoared the shadow of our night ; 
Envy and calumny and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight. 
Can touch him not and torture not again; 
From the contagion of the world^s slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit'^s self has ceased to burn. 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 



XLI 

He lives, he wakes — 'i is Death is dead, not he ; 
Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ; 
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 
Cease, ye faint flowers and fountains, and thou Air 
Which like a mourning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
O^er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair ! 

[ 237 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XLII 

He is made one with Nature : there is heard 
His voice in all her music^ from the moan 
Of thunder to the song of night^s sweet bird ; 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkness and in lights from herb and stone. 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own ; 
Which wields the world with never wearied love. 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 

XLIII 

He is a portion of the loveliness 
Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear 
His part, while the one Spirit''s plastic stress 
Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there 
All new successions to the forms they wear ; 
Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 
From trees and beasts and men into the Heaven^s light. 

XLIV 

The splendours of the firmament of time 
May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not ; 
Like stars to their appointed height they climb 
And death is a low mist which cannot blot 
The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought 
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THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, 
And love and life contend in it, for what 
Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there 
And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. 



XLV 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
Eose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Ear in the Unapparent. Chatterton 
Kose pale, his solemn agony had not 
Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell and as he lived and loved 
Sublimely mild, a Spirit without spot. 
Arose ; and Lucan, by his death approved : 
Oblivion as they rose slirank like a thing reproved. 



XLYI 

And many more, whose names on earth are dark 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outlives the parent spark, 
Eose, robed in dazzling immortality. 
" Thou art become as one of us/'' they cry, 
" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blind in unascended majesty. 
Silent alone amid an Heaven of Song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng 

[ 239 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

XLVII 

Who mourns for Adonais ? Oh come forth 
Fond wretch ! and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth ; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit^s light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light lest it make thee sink 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the brink. 

XLVIII 

Or go to Eome, which is the sepulchre 
Oh ! not of him, but of our joy : "'tis nought 
That ages, empires, and religions there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
Por such as he can lend, — they borrow not 
Glory from those who made the world their prey; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
Who waged contention with their timer's decay. 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 

XLIX 

Go thou to Eome, — at once the Paradise, 
The grave, the city, and the wilderness ; 
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise. 
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness 
[UO ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

Pass^ till the Spirit of the spot shall lead 
Thy footsteps to a slope of green access 
Where, like an infant's smile^ over the dead 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread. 



And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 
And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, 
Pavilioning the dust of him who planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath, 
A field is spread, on which a newer band 
Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death 
Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. 



LI 

Here pause : these graves are all too young ^ as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set 
Here, on one fountain of a mourning mind. 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
Thine own w^ell full, if thou returnest home. 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become ? 

1 Shelley's infant son William had been buried in this ground less than 
two years before. 

16 [ 241 ] 



WITH SHELLEY LN ITALY 

LIT 

The One remains^ the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light for ever shmes, Earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
EoUow where all is fled ! — Eome's azure sky, 
Elowers, ruins, statues, music, — words are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart ? 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year. 
And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles, — the low wind whispers near; 
'T is Adonais calls ! oh, hasten thither, 
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. 

LIV 

That Light whose smile kindles the Universe^ 
That Beauty in which all things work and move, 
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of being blindly wove 
[ 242 ] - 



• UOTESTANT CEMETERY and 

Pyramid of Cestius at Rome. 




'"One keen pyramid n'iih wed(/e sublime. 
Pavilioning the dust of him loho planned 
This refuge for his memory, doth stand 
Like flame transformed to marble.'''' 

— Adonais, p. 241. 
Compare with Shelley's prose description, Letter from Naples, p. 73. 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

By man and beast and earth and air and sea, 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst ; now beams on me. 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 

LV 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit^s bark is driven, 
Ear from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar ; 
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 



TO MES. SHELLEY 
(Bagni di Pisa) 

Florence, Aug. 1, 1821. 
... I spent three hours this morning principally in 
the contemplation of the Niobe and of a favourite Apollo ; 
all worldly thoughts and cares seem to vanish from before 
the sublime emotions such spectacles create; and I am 
deeply impressed with the great difference of happiness 
enjoyed by those who live at a distance from these incar- 
nations of all that the finest minds have conceived of 
beauty, and those who can resort to their company at 
pleasure. What should we think if we were forbidden to 
[ 243 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

read the great writers who have left us their works ? And 
yet to be forbidden to live at Florence or Eome is an evil 
of the same kind, of scarcely less magnitude. 



TO MRS. SHELLEY 
(Pisa) 

Ravenna, August 8, 1821. 

After having sent my letter to the post yesterday, I 
went to see some of the antiquities of this place ; which 
appear to be remarkable. This city was once of vast 
extent, and the traces of its remains are to be found more 
than four miles from the gate of the modern town. The 
sea, which once came close to it, has now retired to the 
distance of four miles, leaving a melancholy extent of 
marshes, interspersed with patches of cultivation, and 
towards the sea shore with pine forests, which have 
followed the retrocession of the Adriatic, and the roots 
of which are actually washed by its waves. The level of 
the sea and of this tract of country correspond so nearly, 
that a ditch dug to a few feet in depth is immediately 
filled up with sea water. All the ancient buildings have 
been choked up to the height of from five to twenty feet 
by the deposit of the sea, and of the inundations, which 
are frequent in the Winter. I went in Lord Byron's 
carriage, first to the Chiesa San Yitale, which is certainly 
one of the most ancient churches in Italy. It is a ro- 
tunda supported upon buttresses and pilasters of white 
marble; the ill effect of which is somewhat relieved bj an 
[ 244 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

interior row of columns. The dome is very high and 
narrow. The whole church, in spite of the elevation of 
the soil, is very high for its breadth, and is of a very 
peculiar and striking construction. In the section of one 
of the large tables of marble with which the church is 
lined, they showed me \ki^ perfect figure ^ as perfect as if it 
had been painted, of a Capuchin friar, which resulted 
merely from the shadings and the position of the stains 
in the marble. This is what may be called a pure antici- 
pated cognition of a Capuchin. 

I then went to the tomb of Theodosius,^ which has now 
been dedicated to the Virgin, without however any change 
in its original appearance. It is about a mile from the 
present city. This building is more than half overwhelmed 
by the elevated soil, although a portion of the lower story 
has been excavated, and is filled with brackish and stink- 
ing waters, and a sort of vaporous darkness, and troops of 
prodigious frogs. It is a remarkable piece of architecture, 
and without belonging to a period when the ancient taste 
yet survived, bears nevertheless a certain impression of 
that taste. It consists of two stories; the lower sup- 
ported on Doric arches, and pilasters, and a simple entabla- 
ture. The other circular within, and polygonal outside, 
and roofed with one single mass of ponderous stone, for 
it is evidently one, and Heaven alone knows how they 
contrived to lift it to that height. It is a sort of flattish 
dome, rough- wrought within by the chisel, from which 
the Northern conquerors tore the plates of silver that 

1 An error on Shelley's part. This is the tomb of Theodoric the Great, 
not Theodosius. — Ed. 

[ 245 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

adorned ifc^ and polished without,, with things like handles 
appended to it^ which were also wrought out of the solid 
stone, and to which I suppose the ropes were applied to 
draw it up. You ascend externally into the second story 
by a flight of stone steps, which are modern. 

The next place I went to was a church called la Chiesa 
di Sanf Apollinare, which is a basilica, and built by 
one, I forget whom, of the Christian Emperors; it is a 
long church, with a roof like a barn, and supported by 
twenty-four columns of the finest marble, with an altar 
of jasper, and four columns of jasper and giallo antico, 
supporting the roof of the tabernacle, which are said to 
be of immense value. It is something like that church (I 
forget the name of it) we saw at ^omQ,fuore delle mure?- 
I suppose the emperor stole these columns, which seem 
not at all to belong to the place they occupy. Within the 
city, near the church of San Vitale, there is to be seen the 
tomb of the Empress Galla Placidia, daughter of Theo- 
dosius the Great, together with those of her husband Con- 
stantius, her brother Honorius, and her son Yalentinian — 
all emperors. The tombs are massy cases of marble, 
adorned with rude and tasteless sculpture of lambs, and 
other Christian emblems, with scarcely a trace of the 
antique. It seems to have been one of the first effects 
of the Christian religion, to destroy the power of produc- 
ing beauty in art. These tombs are placed in a sort of 
vaulted chamber, wrought over with rude mosaic, which 
is said to have been built in 1300. I have yet seen no 
more of Eavenna. 

1 St. Paul Without the Walls. 

[ 246 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

TO MARY SHELLEY AT PISA 

Ravenna, August 16, 1821. 

What think you of remaining at Pisa ? The Williamses 
would probably be induced to stay there if we did ; Hunt 
would certainly stay, at least this Winter, near us, should 
he emigrate at all; Lord Byron and his Italian friends 
would remain quietly there; and Lord Byron has cer- 
tainly a great regard for us — the regard of such a man 
is worth — some of the tribute we must pay to the base 
passions of humanity in any intercourse with those within 
their circle ; he is better worth it than those on whom we 
bestow it from mere custom. 

My greatest content would be utterly to desert all human 
society. I would retire with you and our child to a soli- 
tary island in the sea, would build a boat, and shut upon 
my retreat the flood-gates of the world. I would read no 
reviews, and talk with no authors. If I dared trust my im- 
agination, it would tell me that there are one or two chosen 
companions beside yourself whom I should desire. But to 
this I would not listen — where two or three are gathered 
together, the devil is among them. And good, far more 
than evil impulses, love, far more than hatred, has been to 
me, except as you have been its object, the source of all 
sorts of mischief. So on this plan, I would be alone, and 
would devote either to oblivion or to future generations, 
the overflowings of a mind which, timely withdrawn from 
[Ul ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

the contagion, should be kept fit for no baser object. But 
this it does not appear that we shall do. 

The other side of the alternative (for a medium ought 
not to be adopted) is to form for ourselves a society of 
our own class, as much as possible in intellect, or in feel- 
ings ; and to connect ourselves with the interests of that 
society. Our roots never struck so deeply as at Pisa, and 
the transplanted tree flourishes not. People who lead the 
lives which we led until last Winter, are like a family 
of Wahabee Arabs, pitching their tent in the midst of 
London. We must do one thing or the other — for 
yourself, for our child, for our existence. 



TO MR. JOHN GISBORNE 
(London) 

Pisa, October 22, 1821. 

We have furnished a house at Pisa, and mean to make 
it our headquarters. I shall get all my books out, and 
entrench myself like a spider in a web. If you can assist 
P.i in sending them to Leghorn, you would do me an 
especial favour; but do not buy me Calderon, Faust, or 
Kant, as H. S.^ promises to send them me from Paris, 
where I suppose you had not time to procure them. Any 
other books you or Henry think would accord with my 
design, Oilier will furnish you with. 

I should like very much to hear what is said of my 
Adonais, and you would oblige me by cutting out, or 

^ Peacock. 2 Horace Smith. 

[ 248 ] 



65 
O 



w 






I -I 

c i o 

ri "^ SJ 




THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

making Oilier cut out^ any respectable criticism on it, and 
sending it me; you know I do not mind a crown or 
two in postage. The Epipsycliidion is a mystery; as to 
real flesh and blood, you know that I do not deal in those 
articles ; you might as well go to a gin-shop for a leg of 
mutton, as expect anything human or earthly from me. 
I desired Oilier not to circulate this piece except to the 
crvveToi, and even they, it seems, are inclined to approxi- 
mate me to the circle of a servant-girl and her sweetheart. 
But I intend to write a Symposium of my own to set all 
this right. 

I read the Greek dramatists and Plato for ever. You 
are right about Antigone ; how sublime a picture of a 
woman ! and what think you of the choruses, and espe- 
cially the lyrical complaints of the godlike victim? and 
the menaces of Tiresias, and their rapid fulfilment ? Some 
of us have, in a prior existence, been in love with Antigone, 
and that makes us find no full content in any mortal tie. 

THE BOAT ON THE SEECHIO 

Our boat is asleep on Serchio''s stream. 

Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream, 

The helm sways idly, hither and thither ; 

Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast, 
And the oars and the sails ; but ^t is sleeping fast, 
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether. 

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air, 
And the thin white moon lay withering there, 
[ 249 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IxN ITALY 

To tower^ and cavern, and rift, and tree, 
The owl and the bat fled drowsily. 
Day had kindled the dewy woods, 

And the rocks above and the stream below, 
And the vapours in their multitudes, 

And the Apennine^s shroud of Summer snow. 
And clothed with light of aery gold 
The mists in their eastern caves uproUed. 

Day had awakened all things that be. 

The lark and the thrush and the swallow free, 

And the milkmaid^s song and the mower's scythe, 
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee : 
Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn. 

Glow-worms went out on the river's brim. 

Like lamps which a student forgets to trim : 
The beetle forgot to wind his horn. 

The crickets were still in the meadow and hill : 
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun 
Night's dreams and terrors, every one, 
Pled from the brains which are their prey 
Prom the lamp's death to the morning ray. 

All rose to do the task He set to each. 

Who shaped us to his ends and not our own ; 

The million rose to learn, and one to teach 
What none yet ever knew or can be known. 
And many rose . . . 

Whose w^oe was such that fear became desire ; — 

Melchior and Lionel were not among those ; ^ 

1 These names doubtless stand to signify Williams (Melchior) and 
Shelley (Lionel). 

[ 250 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

They from the throng of men had stepped aside, 
And made their home under the green hillside. 
It was that hill, whose intervening brow 

Screens Lucca from the Pisan''s envious eye,^ 
Which the circumfluous plain waving below. 

Like a wide lake of green fertility, 
With streams and fields and marshes bare, 

Divides from the far Apennines — which lie 
Islanded in the immeasurable air. 



" What think you, as she lies in her green cove. 

Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of ? " 

" If morning dreams are true, why I should guess 

That she was dreaming of our idleness. 

And of the miles of watery way 

We should have led her by this time of day/'' — 

" Never mind,^'' said Lionel, 
" Give care to the winds, they can bear it well 
About yon poplar tops ; and see 
The white clouds are driving merrily. 

And the stars we miss this morn will light 

More willingly our return to-night. — 

How it whistles. Dominions long black hair ! 

List my dear fellow ; the breeze blows fair : 

Hear how it sings into the air." 

" Of us and of our lazy motions," 
Impatiently said Melchior, 

''^ If I can guess a boat^s emotions; 

And how we ought, two hours before. 

The mountain San Giuliano as described by Dante, Inferno, canto 33. 

[ 251 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

To have been the devil knows where/^ 
And then, in such transalpine Tuscan 
As would have killed a Della-Cruscan, 

So, Lionel according to his art 

Weaving his idle words, Melchior said : 
" She dreams that we are not yet out of bed ; 
We ^11 put a soul into her, and a heart 
Which like a dove chased by a dove shall beat/^ 

" Ay, heave the ballast overboard, 
And stow the eatables in the aft locker/"* 
" Would not this keg be best a little lowered ? " 
*' No, now all 's right/^ " Those bottles of warm tea 
(Give me some straw) — must be stowed tenderly ; 
Such as we used, in Summer after six. 
To cram in greatcoat pockets, and to mix 
Hard eggs and radishes and rolls at Eton, 
And, couched on stolen hay in those green harbours 
Farmers called gaps, and we schoolboys called arbours, 
Would feast till eight." 



With a bottle in one hand. 
As if his very soul were at a stand, 
Lionel stood — when Melchior brought him steady : — 
Sit at the helm — fasten this sheet — all ready ! '' 



(C 



The chain is loosed, the sails are spread, 
The living breath is fresh behind. 

As with dews and sunrise fed. 

Comes the laughing morning wind ; — 
[ 252 ] 



THE YEARS 1820 AND 1821 

The sails are full^ the boat makes head 
Against the Serchio's torrent fierce, 
Then flags with intermitting course. 

And hangs upon the wave, and stems 

The tempest of the . . . 
Which fervid from its mountain source 
Shallow, smooth, and strong doth come, — 
Swift as fire, tempestuously 
It sweeps into the affrighted sea ; 
In morning^s smile its eddies coil. 
Its billows sparkle, toss, and boil. 
Torturing all its quiet light 
Into columns fierce and bright. 

The Serchio, twisting forth 
Between the marble barriers which it clove 

At Eipafratta, leads through the dread chasm 
The wave that died the death which lovers love. 

Living in what it sought. As if this spasm 
Had not yet passed, the toppling mountains cling, 

But the clear stream in full enthusiasm 
Pours itself on the plahi, then wandering 

Down one clear path of effluence crystalline. 
Sends its superfluous waves, that they may fling 

At Arno's feet tribute of corn and wine. 
Then, through the pestilential deserts wild 

Of tangled marsh and woods of stunted pine. 
It rushes to the Ocean. 



[ 253 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

PEAGMENT 

EVENING : PONTE AL MARE, 

PISA. 

I 

The sun is set ; the swallows are asleep ; 

The bats are flitting fast in the grey air ; 
Tlie slow soft toads out of damp corners creep, 

And evening's breath, wandering here and there 
Over the quivering surface of the stream, 
Wakes not one ripple from its Summer dream. 

II 

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night, 
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees ; 

The wind is intermitting, dry, and light ; 
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze 

The dust and straws are driven up and down. 

And whirled about the pavement of the town. 

Ill 

Within the surface of the fleeting river 
The wrinkled image of the city lay, 

Immovably unquiet, and for ever 
It trembles, but it never fades away ; 

Go to the . . . 

You, being changed, will find it then as now. 
[ 254 ] 




hi 

o H 

CO 

o H 
2. o 



THE YEARS 18*20 AND 1821 

rv 

The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut 
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud, 

Like mountain over mountain huddled, but 
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd ; 

And over it a space of watery blue. 

Which the keen evening star is shining through. 

CHOEUS TO HELLAS 

The world's great age begins anew, 

The golden years return. 
The earth doth like a snake renew 

Her Winter weeds outworn : 
Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam. 
Like wrecks of a dissolving dream. 

A brighter Hellas rears its mountains 

Prom waves serener far; 
A new Peneus rolls his fountains 

Against the morning star. 
Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleep 
Young Cyclads on a sunnier deep. 

A loftier Argo cleaves the main, 

Praught with a later prize ; 
Another Orpheus sings again. 

And loves, and weeps, and dies. 
A new Ulysses leaves once more 
Calypso for his native shore. 
[ ^55 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Oh, write no more the tale of Troy, 
If earth Death^s scroll must be ! 

Nor mix with Laian rage the joy 
Which dawns upon the free : 

Although a subtler Sphinx renew 

Eiddles of death Thebes never knew. 

Another Athens shall arise. 

And to remoter time 
Bequeath, like sunset to the skies. 

The splendour of its prime ; 
And leave, if nought so bright may live. 
All earth can take or Heaven can give. 

Saturn and Love their long repose 
Shall burst, more bright and good 

Than all who fell, than One who rose. 
Than many unsubdued : 

Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers. 

But votive tears and symbol flowers. 

Oh, cease ! must hate and death return ? 

Cease ! must men kill and die ? 
Cease ! drain not to its dregs the urn 

Of bitter prophecy. 
The world is weary of the past. 
Oh, might it die or rest at last ! 



[ 256 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 






i, Cr3 * 




o' 2 



THE YEAR 1822 

PISA: BAY OF LERICI 

INTRODUCTORY 

y/LL Winter long\ a seaside residence for the Sum- 
^i iner had been the talk of the little colony of friends 
at Pisa. House-hunting began in February^ but 
proved to be so difficult that in the end only one house 
could be secured for the two families of Shelley and 
Williams, and the remainder of the group gave up al- 
together the idea of removal. The place selected was 
Casa Magni, now known as Casa Maccarini, on the Bay 
of Lerici near the little fishing-village of San Terenzo. 
To this house, whose foundations were built in the very 
midst of the waves, and which, when storms raged and 
the waters dashed against it, seemed quite as much boat 
as house, they removed in the last days of April, 1822. 
A third story has been added since the time of the Shelley s 
and a modem road now parses in front, but the arrange- 
ment of the interior is quite unaltered. The wide terrace 
running entirely across the front of the house is its prin- 
cipal charm, and here one may truly feel Shelley as a 
^^ presence plain in the place,''"' may fancy him walking 
up cmd down, adding new stanzas to " The Triumph of 
[ 259 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Life^ or composing some of the lovely lyrics so full of 
the local color of this charming hay. 

Where music and moonlight and feeling 
Are one. 

The taste for boating and athletics shared in common 
by Shelley and Williams, although in the end to prove 
their undoing, was from the start a great source of 
pleasure and health to both, Mrs. Williams was musical 
and had a ceHain charm of manner which seems to have 
been achiowledged by everyone. Plainly it was felt by 
both of the Shelley s, and Shelley wrote of her: ''All 
agree that Jane is the exact antitype of the lady described 
in ' The Sensitive Plant,'' though this must have beeii a 
^pure anticipated cognition^ as it was written a year 
before I knew her.'''' The lyrics addressed " To Jane " 
and the " Lines Written in the Bay of Lerici '' reflect the 
characteristic mood and the occupations of this Summer 
by the sea. 

A little sail-boat, the ''Ariel,''"' built according to the 
plans of these amateur seamen a7id not entirely approved 
by the builder of it, now became Shelley'' s favorite haunt, 
and drifting on the zvaves or resting in some sea-cave, he 
took up once more the story of Charles I as the sid)ject 
of a tragedy he had long been conteynplating, and began 
" The Triumph of Life ^'' a long poem in terza rima, the 
favorite Italian metre. These i^ema'm as fragments only, 
but " The Triumph of Life "" shozvs that Shelley'' s powers 
as a poet were never more awake nor more sweetly tuned 
to lofty themes than now. 

[ 260 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

It is characteristic of Shelleifs whole self-forgetting 
career that the voyage ivhich cost him his life was under- 
taken solely in the interests of friendship and generosity. 
For more than a year he had been zvo7'King up a scheme 
for the establishment of a literary magazine at Pisa, 
to be called " The Liberal^ Byron and Shelley were to 
furnish the funds and to be its contiibutors ; Leigh Hunt 
was to come from England to edit it. The whole project 
zcas conceived largely for the sake of helping the well- 
behved but ahvays unfoHunate Hunt, by giving him an 
occupation woHhy of his powers, and at the same time 
possibly benefiting his health by a change of climate. 
With much tact, Byron zvas induced by Shelley to agree 
to surrender the lower fioor of his palace on the Arno at 
Pisa for the occiipation of Hunt, his invalid wife, and 
his seven children. Tzvice Shelley furnished the money 
for the trip from England to Italy, the first start proving 
a failure owing to a storm at sea, which drove them back. 
But in these last days of June, 1822, word came that 
the Hunts had at last reached Genoa and would con- 
tinue their journey by water to Leghorn. Shelley and 
Williams made no delay in sailing for the same port, 
in their own little boat, to meet them. The journey was 
scarcely longer than those they were in the habit of 
making, although more out in the open sea ; there was 
no thought of danger, and the run was accomplished 
swiftly and without adventure. 

After seeing Hunt comfortably settled in Pisa, on the 
eighth day of Jidy, Shelley started on the return voyage 
zvith only Williams arid a young sailor boy as compan- 
[ 261 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

ions. Eager to be off^ they paid no heed to the sug- 
gestion of an old sailor that " the Devil was a-hrewing 
mischief out there,'''' and at mid-day, the '' ArieV sailed 
out of Leghorn harbor. With a glass, she was watched 
by a friend from the light-house tower; he could see her 
as far as Viaregg'io^ about ten miles out at sea, could 
see the " temporale " coming in from the gulf, could see 
them taking in the topsail. Then the storm burst, hid- 
ing them from view and raging with girat fury ; it 
passed as quickly as it came ; in tiventy minutes the hori- 
zon was clear again, but among the many small craft 
which had weathered the gale, there xvas no sign of the 
^^ Ariel." Shelley had never learned to swim, and the 
sea, which he had loved " not wisely but too well^'' had 
engulfed him in its waves. 

Ten days later, the three bodies xvere washed ashore, 
Shelley'' s being easily identified by his garments and the 
copy of Keats'' s poems, given to him by Hunt at their 
parting.^ The story of the cremation on August six- 

1 Shelley's English and American editors have perpetuated Mrs. Shelley's 
wrong writing of this word as " Via Reggio." — Ed. 

2 The circumstances are related by Robert Browning in a letter dated 
March, 1877- "Leigh Hunt told me that the 'Lamia' was the only copy 
procurable in Italy. That he lent it to Shelley with due injunctions to be 
careful of the loan on that account, and that Shelley replied emphatically : 
' I will return it to you with my own hands.' He told me also of the con- 
solation there was to him in the circumstance that the book had been found 
in Shelley's bosom, together with the right hand — evidently thrust there, 
as his custom was, wheu having been struck by any passage in whatever 
book he might be reading with a friend, he paused to enjoy and pronounce 
upon it. This circumstance Leigh Hunt considered decisive as to the sud- 
denness and comparative painlessness of the death. ... On my asking 
Leigh Hunt if the book still existed, he replied, ' No, I threw it into the 

[ 262 ] 




^ 






*- 2. 



THE YEAR 1822 

teenth^ has been told vividly by the eye-witnesses^ Tre- 
lawney. Hunt, and Byron. 

Tradition at Viareggio still points to the spot on the 
sands near the edge of the pine forest, where the funeral 
pyre was made; hut its picturesqueness and desolation 
have been banished by the encroachments of a popular 
bathing-place, and the spade is now (lOOJf,) about to 
destroy all vestiges of the spot by the erection of a new 
building. The oldest inhabitant, aged ninety-five, claims 
to remember the event, but her reminiscences are too 
confused to be trustworthy. 

The ashes were preserved and buried, as was fitting, 
in the Protestant Cemetery at Rome — the spot of which 
Shelley had written, '^ It might make one in love with 
death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a 
place!'^ 

Fitting requiem of the poet are his own words — 
seemingly prophetic — which close the " Ode to Libe?iy ''' : 

My son^, its pinions disarrayed of mighty 
Drooped ; der it closed the echoes far away 
Of the great voice which did its flight sustain^ 
As waves which lately paved his watery way 
Hiss round a drowner's head in their tempestuous play. 

Of the man, many and tender were the tributes written 
both at the time and since, but none mo7'e touching than 
that of tlie friend who knew him best, Leigh Hunt : — ■ 

burning pile ; Shelley said he would return it with his own hands into mine, 
and so he shall return it ! ' " 

^ Scarcely any two of Shelley's biographers have agreed on the date of this 
event. In the archives at Viareggio may be read the Health Officer's 
report saying it took place August 16th at four in the afternoon. — Ed. 

[ 263 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

" Had he lived, . . . he would have made everybody know 
him for what he was — a man idolized by his friends, studious, 
temperate, of the gentlest life and conversation, and willing to 
have died to do the world a service" 

" Had he lived ! '"* But even though dead, something 
of this has come to pass. Better than his contempo- 
raries, do we of the twentieth century understand his 
motives; more plainly than they, do we see that his 
deeds, even when seemingly erratic and blameworthy, 
were never inspired by other than lofty ideals ; and in 
spite of all our materialism, our hearts respond as never 
before to the message of the most spiritual of the English 
poets. 

TO JANE: THE INVITATION 

Best and brightest, come away ! 
Eairer far than this fair Day, 
Which, like thee to those in sorrow, 
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow 
To the rough Year just awake 
In its cradle on the brake. 
The brightest hour of unborn Spring, 
Through the Winter wandering, 
Found, it seems, the lialcyon Morn 
To hoar February born ; 
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth. 
It kissed the forehead of the Earth, 
And smiled upon the silent sea. 
And bade the frozen streams be free, 
[ 264 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

And waked to music all their fountains, 
And breathed upon the frozen mountains. 
And like a prophetess of May 
Strewed flowers upon the barren way, 
Making the wintry world appear 
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. 

Away, away, from men and towns, 
To the wild wood and the downs — 
To the silent wilderness 
Where the soul need not repress 
Its music lest it should not find 
An echo in another^s mind, 
Wliile the touch of Nature^s art 
Harmonises heart to heart. 
I leave this notice on my door 
Eor each accustomed visitor : — 
" I am gone into the fields 
To take what this sweet hour yields ; — 
Eeflection, you may come to-morrow. 
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow. — 
You with the unpaid bill. Despair, — 
You tiresome verse-reciter, Care, — 
I will pay you in the grave, — 
Death will listen to your stave. 
Expectation too, be off ! 
To-day is for itself enough.; 
Hope in pity mock not Woe 
With smiles, nor follow where I go ; 
Long having lived on thy sweet food, 
[ 265 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

At length I find one moment's good 
After long pain — with all your love. 
This you never told me of/' 

Eadiant Sister of the Day, 
Awake ! arise ! and come away ! 
To the wild woods and the plains, 
And the pools where Winter rains 
Image all their roof of leaves, 
Where the pine its garland weaves 
Of sapless green and ivy dun 
Eound stems that never kiss the sun ; 
Where the lawns and pastures be, 
And the sandhills of the sea ; — 
Where the melting hoar-frost wets 
The daisy-star that never sets. 
And wind-flowers, and violets. 
Which yet join not scent to hue. 
Crown the pale year weak and new ; 
When the night is left behind 
In the deep east, dun and blind. 
And the blue noon is over us. 
And the multitudinous 
Billows murmur at our feet. 
Where the earth and ocean meet. 
And all things seem only one 
In the universal sun. 



[ ^6 ] 



a s- 



2 ^ 




THE YEAR 1822 



TO JANE: THE EECOLLECTION 1 



Now the last day of many days, 
All beautiful and bright as thou, 
The loveliest and the last, is dead, 
E-ise, Memory, and write its praise ! 
Up to thy wonted work ! come, trace 

The epitaph of glory fled, — 

For now the Earth has changed its face, 

A frown is on the Heaven^'s brow. 



n 

We wandered to the Pine Eorest 

That skirts the Ocean^s foam. 
The lightest wind was in its nest. 

The tempest in its home. 
The whispering waves were half asleep. 

The clouds were gone to play. 
And on the bosom of the deep. 

The smile of Heaven lay ; 
It seemed as if the hour were one 

Sent from beyond the skies, 
Which scattered from above the sun 

A light of Paradise. 

1 This poem was called originally " In the Pine Forest of the Cascine, 
near Pisa." 

[ 267 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

III 

We paused amid the pines that stood 

The giants of the waste, 
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude 

As serpents interlaced. 
And soothed by every azure breath, 

That under heaven is blown, 
To harmonies and hues beneath. 

As tender as its own ; 
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep. 

Like green waves on the sea. 
As still as in the silent deep 

The ocean woods may be. 



IV 

How calm it was ! — the silence there 

By such a chain was bound 
That even the busy woodpecker 

Made stiller by her sound 
The inviolable quietness ; 

The breath of peace we drew 
"With its soft motion made not less 

The calm that round us grew. 
There seemed from the remotest seat 

Of the white mountain waste. 
To the soft flower beneath our feet, 

A magic circle traced, — 
[ ^68 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

A spirit interfused around^ 

A thrilling silent life, 
To momentary peace it bound 

Our mortal nature's strife ; — 
And still I felt the centre of 

The magic circle there, 
Was one fair form that filled with love 

The lifeless atmosphere. 

V 
We paused beside the pools that lie 

Under the forest bough. 
Each seemed as 't were a little sky 

Gulfed in a world below ; 
A firmament of purple light. 

Which in the dark earth lay, 
More boundless than the depth of night, 

And purer than the day — 
In which the lovely forests grew 

As in the upper air. 
More perfect both in shape and hue 

Than any spreading there. 
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn. 

And through the dark green wood 
The white sun twinkling like the dawn 

Out of a speckled cloud. 
Sweet views which in our world above 

Can never well be seen. 
Were imaged by the water's love 

Of that fair forest green, 
[ 269 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And all was interfused beneath 

With an eljsian glow. 
An atmosphere without a breath, 

A softer day below. 
Like one beloved the scene had lent 

To the dark water's breast. 
Its every leaf and lineament 

With more than truth exprest : 
Until an envious wind crept by, 

Like an unwelcome thought, 
Which from the mind's too faithful eye 

Blots one dear image out. 
Though thou art ever fair and kind, 

The forests ever green, 
Less oft is peace in Shelley's mind. 

Than calm in waters seen. 

WITH A GUITAE: TO JANE^ 

Ariel to Miranda. — Take 
This slave of Music, for the sake 
Of him who is the slave of thee. 
And teach it all the harmony 
In which thou canst, and only thou. 
Make the delighted spirit glow, 

1 This instrument, still in perfect condition, is preserved in the Bodleian 
Library at Oxford, having been given by E. W. Silsbee, of Salem, Mass., 
who bought it of the grandson of the lady to whom the poem is addressed. 
*' There is probably no other relic of a great poet so intimately associated 
with the arts of poetry and music, or ever will be, unless Milton's organ 
should turn up at a broker's, or some excavating explorer should bring 
to light the lyre of Sappho." — R. Garnett. 

[ 270 ] 



M 



ONUMENT to Shelley at Viareggio. 
In Piazza Shelley, formei-ly Piazza 
Paolina. 




iiiPiHHiipBPifeii 




THE YEAR 1822 

Till joy denies itself again, 
And, too intense, is turned to pain j 
For, by permission and command 
Of thine own Prince Ferdinand, 
Poor Ariel sends this silent token 
Of more than ever can be spoken ; 
Your guardian spirit, Ariel, who. 
From life to life, must still pursue 
Your happiness ; — for thus alone 
Can Ariel ever find his own. 
From Prosperous enchanted cell, 
As the mighty verses tell. 
To the throne of Naples, he 
Lit you o''er the trackless sea. 
Flitting on, your prow before. 
Like a living meteor. 
When you die, the silent Moon, 
In her interlunar swoon. 
Is not sadder in her cell 
Than deserted Ariel. 
When you live again on earth 
Like an unseen star of birth, 
Ariel guides you o'er the sea 
Of life from your nativity. 
Many changes have been run, 
Since Ferdinand and you begun 
Your course of love, and Ariel still 
Has tracked your steps, and served your will j 
Now, in humbler, happier lot 
This is all remembered not; 
[ 271 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

And now, alas ! the poor sprite is 
Imprisoned^ for some fault of his, 
In a body like a grave ; — 
From you he only dares to crave. 
For his service and his sorrow, 
A smile to-day, a song to-morrow. 



The artist who this idol wrought. 
To echo all harmonious thought, 
Felled a tree, while on the steep 
The woods were in their Winter sleep, 
Eocked in that repose divine 
On the wind-swept Apennine ; 
And dreaming, some of Autumn past. 
And some of Spring approaching fast, 
And some of April buds and showers. 
And some of songs in July bowers. 
And all of love ; and so this tree, — 
that such our death may be ! — 
Died in sleep, and felt no pain. 
To live in happier form again : 
From which, beneath Heaven^s fairest star. 
The artist wrought this loved Guitar, 
And taught it justly to reply. 
To all who question skilfully. 
In language gentle as thine own; 
Whispering in enamoured tone 
Sweet oracles of woods and dells, 
And Summer winds in sylvan cells ; 
[ 272 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

For it had learnt all harmonies 
Of the plains and of the skies, 
Of the forests and the mountains, 
And the many-voiced fountains ; 
The clearest echoes of the hills. 
The softest notes of falling rills. 
The melodies of birds and bees. 
The murmuring of Summer seas. 
And pattering rain, and breathing dew. 
And airs of evening ; and it knew 
That seldom-heard mysterious sound. 
Which, driven on its diurnal round, 
As it floats through boundless day. 
Our world enkindles on its way — 
All this it knows, but will not tell 
To those who cannot question well 
The spirit that inhabits it ; 
It talks according to the wit 
Of its companions ; and no more 
Is heard than has been felt before. 
By those who tempt it to betray 
These secrets of an elder day : 
But sweetly as its answers will 
Flatter hands of perfect skill. 
It keeps its highest, holiest tone 
For our beloved Jane alone. 



18 [ 273 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



TO JANE 



The keen stars were twinkling, 
And the fair moon was rising among them,, 
Dear Jane ! 
The guitar was tinkling, 
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them 
Again. 

II 

As the moon's soft splendour 
O^er the faint cold starlight of heaven 
Is thrown, 
So your voice most tender 
To the strings without soul had then given 
Its own. 



Ill 

The stars will awaken, 
Though the moon sleep a full hour later, 
To-night; 
No leaf will be shaken 
Wliilst the dews of your melody scatter 
Delight. 

[ 274 ] 



IVriNERVA. In 

-^'-"-Uffizi Gallerv. 




See p. 282. 



THE YEAR 1822 



IV 



Though the sound overpowers, 
Sing again^ with your dear voice revealing 
A tone 
Of some world far from ours, 
Where music and moonlight and feeling 
Are one. 

A DIRGE 

EouGH wind, that moanest loud 

Grief too sad for song ; 
Wild wind, when sullen cloud 

Knells all the night long ; 
Sad storm_, whose tears are vain, 

Bare woods, whose branches stain, 
Deep caves and dreary main. 

Wail, for the w^orld^s wrong ! 

LINES WRITTEN IN THE BAY OP LERICI 

She left me at the silent time 
When the moon had ceased to climb 
The azure path of Heaven^s steep, 
And like an albatross asleep, 
Balanced on her wings of light. 
Hovered in the purple night, 
Ere she sought her ocean nest 
In the chambers of the West. 
[ 275 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

She left me, and I stayed alone 
Thinking over every tone 
Which, though silent to the ear, 
The enchanted heart could hear. 
Like notes which die when born, but still 
Haunt the echoes of the hill ; 
And feeling ever — oh, too much ! — 
The soft vibration of her touch. 
As if her gentle hand, even now. 
Lightly trembled on my brow ; 
And thus, although she absent were. 
Memory gave me all of her 
That even Fancy dares to claim : — 
Her presence had made weak and tame 
All passions, and I lived alone 
In the time which is our own ; 
The past and future w^ere forgot, 
As they had been, and would be, not. 
But soon, the guardian angel gone. 
The daemon reassumed his throne 
In my faint heart. I dare not speak 
My thoughts, but thus disturbed and weak 
I sat and saw the vessels glide 
Over the ocean bright and wide. 
Like spirit-winged chariots sent 
O^er some serenest element 
For ministrations strange and far ; 
As if to some Elysian star 
Sailed for drink to medicine 
Such sweet and bitter pain as mine. 
[ 276 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

And the wind that winged their flight 

Erom the land came fresh and light. 

And the scent of winged flowers, 

And the coolness of the hours 

Of dew, and sweet warmth left by day. 

Were scattered o^er the twinkling bay. 

And the fisher with his lamp 

And spear about the low rocks damp 

Crept, and struck the fish which came 

To worship the delusive flame. 

Too happy they, whose pleasure sought 

Extinguishes all sense and thought 

Of the regret that pleasure leaves. 

Destroying life alone, not peace ! 

THE ISLE 

There was a little lawny islet 
By anemone and violet. 

Like mosaic, paven : 
And its roof was flowers and leaves 
Which the Summer^s breath enweaves. 
Where nor sun nor showers nor breeze 
Pierce the pines and tallest trees, 

Each a gem engraven. 
Girt by many an azure wave 
With which the clouds and mountains pave 

A lake's blue chasm. 



[ 271 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

TO LEIGH HUNT 

(At Genoa) 

Lerici, June 19, 1822. 

My dearest Eriend, — I write to you on the chance 
that you may not have left Genoa before my letter can 
reach you. Your letter was sent to Pisa, and thence for- 
warded here,, or I should probably have ventured to meet 
you at Genoa ; but the chances are now so much dimin- 
ished of finding you that I will not run the risk of the 
delay of seeing you that would be caused by our missing 
each other on the way. I shall therefore set off for Leg- 
horn the moment that I hear you have sailed. We now 
inhabit a white house, with arches, near the town of Lerici, 
in the Gulf of Spezia. The Williamses are with us. 
Williams is one of the best fellows in the world; and 
Jane, his wife, a most delightful person, whom we all 
agree is the exact antitype of the lady I described in " The 
Sensitive Plant,''' though this must have been a pure antici- 
pated cognition, as it was written a year before I knew her. 
I wish you need not pass Lerici, which I fear you will do ; 
cast your eye on the white house and think of us. 

A thousand welcomes, my best friend, to this divine 
country ; high mountains and seas no longer divide those 
whose affections are united. . . . Give me the earliest in- 
telligence of your motions. 



[378] 



\7^ENUS ANADYOMENE. 
^ ]ii Uffizi Gallery. 




— See p. 285. 



THE YEAR 1822 

TO HOEACE SMITH 

(London) 

Lerici, June 29, 1822. 
• ••••* 

Lord Byron continues at Leghorn^ and has just received 
from Genoa a most beautiful little yacht, which he caused 
to be built there. He has written two new cantos of '' Don 
Juan," but I have not seen them. I have just received a 
letter from Hunt, who has arrived at Genoa. As soon as 
I hear that he has sailed, I shall weigh anchor in my little 
schooner, and give him chase to Leghorn, when I must 
occupy myself in some arrangements for him with Lord 
Byron. Between ourselves, I greatly fear that this alli- 
ance ^ will not succeed : for I, who could never have been 
regarded as more than the link of the two thunderbolts, 
cannot now consent to be even that; and how long the 
alHance may continue, I will not prophesy. Pray do not 
hint my doubts on the subject to any one, or they might 
do harm to Hunt ; and they vta^ be groundless. 

I still inhabit this divine bay, reading Spanish dramas, 
and sailing, and listening to the most enchanting music. 
We have some friends on a visit to us, and my only regret 
is that the Summer must ever pass, or that Mary has not 
the same predilection for this place that I have, which 
would induce me never to shift my quarters. 

1 Alliance of Lord Byron, Leigh Hunt, and Shelley, for the publication 
at Pisa of a periodical to be called " The Liberal." The first number of 
this magazine, not issued until after Shelley's death, contained contributions 
from all three. It was a failure fi^nanciaUy, and was discontinued after the 
publication of foui' numbers. 

[ 279 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 



CEITICAL NOTICES OF THE SCULPTUEE IN 
THE FLORENCE GALLERY 

On the Niobe 

Op all that remains to us of Greek antiquity, this figure 
is perhaps the most consummate personification of loveli- 
ness, with regard to its countenance, as that of the Yenus 
of the Tribune is with regard to its entire form of woman. 
It is colossal ; the size adds to its value ; because it allows 
to the spectator the choice of a greater number of points 
of view, and affords him a more analytical one, in which to 
catch a greater number of the infinite modes of expression 
of which any form approaching ideal beauty is necessarily 
composed. It is the figure of a mother in the act of 
sheltering, from some divine and inevitable peril, the last, 
we may imagine, of her surviving children. 

The little creature, terrified, as we may conceive, at the 
strange destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother 
and is hiding its head in the folds of her robe, and casting 
back one arm, as in a passionate appeal for defence, 
where it never before could have been sought in vain. 
She is clothed in a thin tunic of delicate woof; and her 
hair is fastened on her head into a knot, probably by that 
mother whose care will never fasten it again. Niobe is en- 
veloped in profuse drapery, a portion of which the left hand 
has gathered up, and is in the act of extending it over the 
child in the instinct of shielding her from what reason 
knows to be inevitable. The right ( as the restorer has 
properly imagined) is drawing up her daughter to her : 
[ 280 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

and with that instinctive gesture, and by its gentle pres- 
sure, is encouraging the child to believe that it can give 
security. The countenance of Niobe is the consummation 
of feminine majesty and loveliness, beyond which the im- 
agination scarcely doubts that it can conceive anything. 

That masterpiece of the poetic harmony of marble ex- 
presses other feelings. There is embodied a sense of the 
inevitable and rapid destiny which is consummating around 
her, as if it were already over. It seems as if despair and 
beauty had combined, and produced nothing but the sub- 
limity of grief. As the motions of the form expressed the 
instinctive sense of the possibility of protecting the child, 
and the accustomed and affectionate assurance that she 
would find an asylum within her arms, so reason and im- 
agination speak in the countenance the certainty that no 
mortal defence is of avail. There is no terror in the coun- 
tenance, only grief — deep, remediless grief. There is no 
anger: — of what avail is indignation against what is 
known to be omnipotent ? There is no selfish shrinking 
from personal pain — there is no panic at supernatural 
agency — there is no adverting to herself as herself : the 
calamity is mightier than to leave scope for such emotions. 

Everything is swallowed up in sorrow : she is all tears ; 
her countenance, in assured expectation of the arrow pierc- 
ing its last victim in her embrace, is fixed on her omnipo- 
tent enemy. The pathetic beauty of the expression of her 
tender, and inexhaustible, and unquenchable despair, is 
beyond the effect of sculpture. As soon as the arrow shall 
pierce her last tie upon earth, the fable that she was turned 
into stone, or dissolved into a fountain of tears, will be but 
[ 281 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

a feeble emblem of the sadness of hopelessness, in which 
the few and evil years of her remaining life, we feel, must 
flow away. 

It is difficult to speak of the beauty of the countenance, 
or to make intelligible in words, from what such astonish- 
ing loveliness results. 

The head, resting somewhat backward upon the full and 
flowing contour of the neck, is as in the act of watching an 
event momently to arrive. The hair is delicately divided 
on the forehead, and a gentle beauty gleams from the broad 
and clear forehead, over which its strings are drawn. The 
face is of an oval fulness, and the features conceived with 
the daring of a sense of power. In this respect it resem- 
bles the careless majesty which Nature stamps upon the 
rare masterpieces of her creation, harmonising them as it 
were from the harmony of the spirit within. Yet all this 
not only consists with, but is the cause of the subtlest deli- 
cacy of clear and tender beauty — the expression at once 
of innocence and sublimity of soul — of purity and strength 
— of all that which touches the most removed and divine 
of the chords that make music in our thoughts — of that 
which shakes with astonishment even the most superficial. 

The Minerva 

The head is of the highest beauty. It has a close helmet, 
from which the hair, delicately parted on the forehead, half 
escapes. The attitude gives entire effect to the perfect 
form of the neck, and to that full and beautiful moulding 
of the lower part of the face and mouth, which is in living 
[ 282 ] 



M 



ICIIEL ANGELO'S Bacchus. 
Ill Natioiinl Museum. 




Seep. 286. 



THE YEAR 1822 

beings the seat of the expression of a simplicity ana in- 
tegrity of nature. Her face, u^^raised to heaven, is anima- 
ted with a profound, sweet, and impassioned melancholy, 
with an earnest, and fervid, and disinterested pleading 
against some vast and inevitable wrong. It is the joy and 
poetry of sorrow making grief beautiful, and giving it that 
nameless feeling which, from the imperfection of language, 
we call pain, but which is not all pain, though a feeling 
which makes not only its possessor, but the spectator of it, 
prefer it to what is called pleasure, in which all is not 
pleasure. It is difficult to think that this head, though of 
highest ideal beauty, is the head of Minerva, although the 
attributes and attitude of the lower part of the statue cer- 
tainly suggest that idea. The Greeks rarely, in their repre- 
sentations of the characters of their gods, — unless we call 
the poetic enthusiasm of Apollo a mortal passion, — ex- 
pressed the disturbance of human feeling ; and here is deep 
and impassioned grief animating a divine countenance. It 
is, indeed, divine. Wisdom (which Minerva may be sup- 
posed to emblem) is pleading earnestly with Power, — 
and invested with the expression of that grief, because it 
must ever plead so vainly. The drapery of the statue, the 
gentle beauty of the feet, and the grace of the attitude, are 
what may be seen in many other statues belonging to that 
astonishing era which produced it ; such a countenance is 
seen in few. 

This statue happens to be placed on a pedestal, the sub- 
ject of whose relief is in a spirit wholly the reverse. It 
was probably an altar to Bacchus — possibly a funeral urn. 
Under the festoons of fruits and flowers that grace the 
[ 283 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

pedestal, the corners of which are ornamented with the 
skulls of goats, are sculptured some figures of Maenads 
under the inspiration of the god. Nothing can be con- 
ceived more wild and terrible than their gestures, touching, 
as they do, the verge of distortion, into which their fine 
limbs and lovely forms are thrown. There is nothing, 
however, that exceeds the possibility of nature, though it 
borders on its utmost line. 

The tremendous spirit of superstition, aided by drunk- 
enness, producing something beyond insanity, seems to 
have caught them in its whirlwinds, and to bear them over 
the earth, as the rapid volutions of a tempest have the 
ever-changing trunk of a waterspout, or as the torrent of a 
mountain river whirls the autumnal leaves resistlessly along 
in its full eddies. The hair, loose and floating, seems 
caught in the tempest of their own tumultuous motion; 
their heads are thrown back, leaning with a strange delirium 
upon their necks, and looking up to heaven whilst they 
totter and stumble even in the energy of their tempestuous 
dance. 

One represents Agave with the head of Pentheus in one 
hand, and in the other a great knife ; a second has a spear 
with its pine cone, which was the Thyrsus ; another dances 
with mad voluptuousness ; the fourth is beating a kind of 
tambourine. 

This was indeed a monstrous superstition, even in 
Greece, where it was alone capable of combining ideal 
beauty and abstract enthusiasm with the wild errors from 
which it sprung. In Eome it had a more familiar, wicked, 
and dry appearance ; it was not suited to the severe and 
[ 284 ] 



THE YEAR 1822 

exact apprehensions of the Eomans, and their strict morals 
were violated by it, and sustained a deep injury, little 
analogous to its effects upon the Greeks, who turned all 
things — superstition, prejudice, murder, madness — to 
beauty. 

On the Yenus called Anadyomene 

She has just issued from the bath, and yet is animated 
with the enjoyment of it. 

She seems all soft and mild enjoyment, and the curved 
lines of her fine limbs flow into each other with a never- 
ending sinuosity of sweetness. Her face expresses a 
breathless, yet passive and innocent voluptuousness, free 
from affectation. Her lips, without the sublimity of lofty 
and impetuous passion, the grandeur of enthusiastic imagi- 
nation of the Apollo of the Capitol, or the union of both, 
like the Apollo Belvedere, have the tenderness of arch, yet 
pure and affectionate desire, and the mode in which the 
ends of the mouth are drawn in, yet lifted or half-opened, 
with the smile that for ever circles round them, and the 
tremulous curve into which they are wrought by inex- 
tinguishable desire, and the tongue lying against the lower 
lip, as in the listlessness of passive joy, express love, still 
love. 

Her eyes seem heavy and swimming with pleasure, and 
her small forehead fades on both sides into that sweet 
swelling and thin declension of the bone over the eye, in 
the mode which expresses simple and tender feelings. 

The neck is full, and panting as with the aspiration of 
delight, and flows with gentle curves into her perfect form. 
[ 285 ] 



WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY 

Her form is indeed perfect. She is half-sitting and 
half-rising from a shelly and the fulness of her limbs, and 
their complete roundness and perfection, do not diminish 
the vital energy with which they seem to be animated. 
The position of the arms, which are lovely beyond imagi- 
nation, is natural, unaffected, and easy. This, perhaps, is 
the finest personification of Venus, the deity of superficial 
desire, in all antique statuary. Her pointed and pear- 
like person, ever virgin, and her attitude modesty itself. 

Michael Angelo's Bacchus 

The countenance of this figure is a most revolting mistake 
of the spirit and meaning of Bacchus. It looks drunken, 
brutal, narrow-minded, and has an expression of dissolute- 
ness the most revolting. The lower part of the figure is 
stiff, and the manner in which the shoulders are united to 
the breast, and the neck to the head, abundantly inhar- 
monious. It is altogether without unity, as was the idea 
of the deity of Bacchus in the conception of a Catholic. 
On the other hand, considered only as a piece of workman- 
ship, it has many merits. The arms are executed in a 
style of the most perfect and manly beauty. The body is 
conceived with great energy, and the manner in which the 
lines mingle into each other, of the highest boldness and 
truth. It wants unity as a work of art — as a representa- 
tion of Bacchus it wants everything. 



[ 286 ] 



INDEX 



INDEX 



MmK, Circe's island, 199 

Albano, 92 

Albano (painter) in Bologna Gal- 
lery, 65 

Amphitheatre, Rome, 71, 102 ; see 
illustrcUioiis facing 70, 102 

Angelo, Michael, in Uffizi Gal- 
lery, 286 ; see illustration facing 
282 

Apennines, The, 3, 5, 9, 14, 26, 
67, 250 ; see illustration facing 
2 

Arch of Constantine, 71, 95, 101; 
see illustration facing 90 

Arch of Septimus Severus, 95 

Arch of Titus, 101; see illustrations 
facing 98, 102 

Arch of Trajan, see Arch of 
Constantine 

Arno, River, *' Wood that skirts 
the, near Florence, " 146 {note), 
see illustrations facing 146; at 
Pisa, 254, see illustration facing 
238 

Arno, Vale of, 14 

Arqua, 16, 63 ; see illustration 
facing 16 

Avernus, Lake, 77 

Bacchus, Uffizi Gallery, 286 ; 

see illustration facing 282 
Bagni di Lucca, 9, 62 ; letter 

from, 9 ; see illustration facing 

10 
Baise, Excursion to, 76, 195 {note); 



Bay of, 76, 147, 196; see illus- 
tration facing 196 

Barberiui Palace, Portrait of La 
Cenci in, 127 ; see illustration 
facing 126 

Biographical I^otes : Bagni di 
Lucca, Este, Naples (1818), 3 ; 
Rome, Leghorn, Florence (1819), 
87; Leghorn, Pisa (1820 and 
1821), 153 ; Pisa, Bay of Lerici 
(1822), 259 

Bologna, Letter from, 64 ; see illus- 
trations facing 62, 66; leaning 
towers of, 66, see illustration 
facing 66 

Byron, Lord, 4, 22, 36, 60-62, 
153, 233, 244, 247, 261, 279 ; 
as Maddalo in "Julian and 
Maddalo," 36-59 

Campagna di Roma, 70, 92 ; see 
illustration facing 86 

Caracalla, Baths of, 92 ; see illus- 
tration facing 80 

Carracci in Bologna Gallery, 65 

Casa Magni (Casa Maccarini), 259, 
278 ; see frontispiece, and illus- 
tration facing 262 

Cascine, Pine forest of the, near 
Pisa, 267; see illustration facing 
152 

Castor and Pollux, statues on steps 
of Capitol, Rome, 97 

Cenci Palace, Rome, 128 ; see il- 
lustration facing 132 



19 



[289] 



INDEX 



Cestius, Tomb of, 73, 228 ; see 
illustration facing 242 

Coleridge, Samuel T., 164 

Coliseum, Rome, 71, 102; see il- 
lustrations facing 70, 102 

Colonna Palace, 127 

Como, Lake, 6; scene of "Rosa- 
lind and Helen " laid on shores, 
4, 10; see illustration faci7ig 4 

Como, Town of, 6 

Da Vinci, Leonardo, in Flor- 
entine Gallery, 143 ; see illus- 
tration facing 142 

Doge's Palace, Venice, 62 ; see 
illustration facing 46 

Domenichino in Bologna Gallery, 
65 

English cemetery, Rome, 72, 228, 
241, 263 ; see illustration fac- 
ing 242 

Este, "To Mary Shelley" writ- 
ten from, 14 ; Mary Shelley's 
description of, 15 ; letter from, 
62 

Euganean Hills, scene of poem, 16 ; 
in "Julian and Maddalo," 40; 
see illustrations facing 14, 28, 40 

Fano, 67 

Florence, Letters from, 13, 243 ; 
description of, 14; in " Mar- 
enghi," 30 ; see illustration fac- 
ing 32 

Florentine Gallery, Medusa of 
Leonardo da Vinci, 143 

Foligno, 67 

Fontana di Trevi, Rome, 99 

Forum, Rome, 72, 95 ; see illustra- 
tion facing 92 

Fossombrone, 67 

Fountains of Rome, 99 



GiSBORNE, Mr. and Mrs., 156 ; 
letter to, 9 ; letter in verse to 
Mrs. Gisborne in London, 157- 
169 ; letter to Mr. Gisborne, 
248 

Godwin, father-in-law of Shelley, 
164 

Gondolas, Padua, 60 ; Venice, 62 

Guercino in Bologna Gallery, 65 ; 
see illustration facing %Q 

Hogg, Thomas Jefferson, 165, 

168 
Hunt, Leigh, 38, 165, 168, 235, 

247, 261-264, 279; letter to, 

278 

Inarime (island of Ischia), 192, 
196 

"Jane" (Mrs. Edward Williams), 
153, 154, 260; "To Jane: the 
Invitation," 264-266; "To 
Jane : the Recollection," 267- 
270; "With a Guitar: to 
Jane," 270-273; "To Jane," 
274, 275 

Keats, John, news of death of and 
inspiration of "Adonais," 155; 
sketch of in preface to "Adon- 
ais," 228 ; subject of poem, 229- 
243 ; see illustrations facing 2QQy 
210 

Leghorn (Livomo), Letters from, 
9, 126, 156, 157 ; Shelley's home 
at, 126, 155; Shelley's last 
journey to, 261, 278 

Lerici, Bay and town of, 259 ; 
"Lines Written in the Bay of 
Lerici," 275-277 ; letters from, 
278, 279 ; see frontispiece, and il- 
lustrations facing 246, 248, 250, 
254 



[290] 



INDEX 



Letters : 

to Mr. and Mrs. Gisborne, 9 

to Mrs. Gisborne (in verse), 157- 
169 ; to Mr. Gisborne, 248 

to Leigh Hunt, 278 

to Thomas Love Peacock, 6, 9, 
62, 64, 67, 70, 75, 80, 91, 125, 
126, 156, 187 

to Mary Shelley, 13, 59, 243, 
244, 247 

to Horace Smith, 279 
"Liberal, The," 261, 279 
Lido at Venice, 38, 41, 61 ; see 

illustration facing 36 
Livorno (Leghorn), Letter from, 

126 
Lombardy, Plain of, 9, 19, 64 ; 

leaning towers of, 66 ; see illus- 
tration facing 52 
Lucca, Baths of, 62; see Bagni di 

Lucca 



Maremma, The, 82 

Mare Morto, 76; see illustration 
facing 196 

Mavrocordato (Greek prince), 154 

Medici family. Residence of, 64 

Medusa (Leonardo da Vinci), Flor- 
entine Gallery, 143; see illustra- 
tion facing 142 

Medwin, Thomas, 153 

Metaurus Eiver, 67 

Milan, Letter from, 6; cathedral 
of, 8; see illustrations facing 6, 8 

Minerva, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 
282-285; see illustration facing 
274 

Misenum, Cape, 76; see illustration 
facing 196 

:Mola di Gaeta, 91 

Monte Nuovo, 77 

Moore, Thomas, 233 



Naples, Letters from, 70, 75, 80, 
187; "Stanzas written in De- 
jection, near Naples," 73; Bay 
of, 76; "Ode to Naples," 
195-201 

Nar, River, 70 

Nepi, 70 

Niobe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence, 
243, 280-282; see illustration 
facing 218 

Nisida, Island of, 76 



Padua, 23-25, 60 ; see illustration 
facing 24 

Paestum, see Posidonia 

Pantheon, Rome, 98 ; see illustra- 
tion facing 96 

Peacock, Thomas Love, Letters to, 
6, 9, 62, 64, 67, 70, 75, 80, 91, 
125, 126, 156, 187; reference to in 
poetical letter to Maria Gisborne, 
165, 168 ; in letter to Mr. Gis- 
borne, 248 

Pesto, see Posidonia 

Petrarch, Tomb and house of, 16, 
23, 64; see illustration facing 16 

Piazza Navona, Rome, Fountain 
in, 99 

Piazza Quirinale (Monte Cavallo) 
fountain, 100 

Pineta, near Pisa, 154; see illustra- 
tion facing 152 

Pisa, Description of, 9 ; ruins of, 
31; Shelley's home there, 153, 
154, 247, 248 ; prison of Ugolino, 
203 ; Convent of St. Anne, 204; 
letter from, 248 ; " Evening : 
Ponte al Mare, Pisa," 254; see 
illustrations facing 234, 238 

Pliniana, Villa, 7. 

Pompeii, described in letter, 187- 
194 ; in "Ode to Naples," 195; 
see illustrations facing 186, 192, 
200, 204 

[291] 



INDEX 



Porto Venere ; see illustration 
facing 254 

Posidonia (Pesto or Paestum), 80, 
82 ; see illustrations facing 74, 78 

Posilipo, 76. 

Pozzuoli, Bay of, 76, 77. 

Prato Fiorito, 9 

Protestant cemetery, Rome, 72 ; 
Keats buried in, 228; Shelley's 
son buried in, 241 ; Shelley 
buried in, 263 ; see illustrations 
facing 206, 214, 242 

Eaphael in Bologna Gallery, 64 ; 
see illustration facing 62 

Ravenna, Letters from, 244, 247; 
description of, 244 ; tombs of 
emperors in, 246 ; see illustrations 
facing 222, 226, 230 

Resina, 78 

Reveley, Henry, 156 

Rimini, 67 

Rome, Letters from, 67, 91, 125 ; 
prose description, 70 ; story of 
"TheCenci,"127; in *' Ode to 
Liberty," 180 ; Protestant ceme- 
tery, 72, 228, 241, 263; in 
"Adonais," 240; see illustra- 
tions facing 70, 92, 96, 98, 102, 
138, 206, 210, 214, 242 

St. Angelo, Castle, Rome ; see 

illustration facing 138 
St. Cecilia (Raphael), Bologna, 64 ; 

see illustration facing 62 
St. Paul Without the Walls, 

Rome, 246 
St. Peter's, Rome, 97 
Salerno, 81, 82 ; see illustrations 

facing 82 
San Giuliano, Baths of, 155 ; 

Mountains of, 250 
San Salvador, Hermitage of, 78 
Sant* ApoUinare, Chiesa di, Ra- 



venna, 246 ; see illustration faxi- 

ing 230 
San Terenzo, 259 ; see illustration 

facing 250 
San Vitale, Chiesa di, Ravenna, 

244 ; see illustration facing 222 
Serchio River, 155 ; " The Boat 

on the Serchio," 249-253 ; see 

illustration facing 258 
Sgricci (improvisatore), 154 
Shelley, Mary ; addressed in poems, 

5, 14 ; letters to, 13, 59, 243, 

244, 247 ; her description of villa 

at Este, 15 ; of home at Pisa, 153 ; 

her explanatory notes, 29, 75 ; 

in regard to home at Lerici, 279 
Sirani, Elisabetta, 65 
Smith, Horace, 166, 168, 248; 

letter to, 279 
Solfatara, 77 
Spezia, Gulf of, 278 ; see Lerici, 

Bay and town of 
Spoleto, 68 ; see illustration facing 

58 
Staggia, Fortress at, 181 ; see illus- 
tration facing 180 

Temple of Concord, 95 

Terni, Falls of, 67; see illustration 

facing 68 
Terracina, 91 
Theodoric the Great, Tomb of, 

Ravenna, 245 ; see illustration 

facing 226 
Theodosius, Tomb of, Ravenna, see 

Theodoric the Great, Tomb of 
Torre del Greco, 81 
Trelawney, Captain Edward, 153, 

154 
Tremezina, The, 6 



Ugolino, Prison 
Cavalieri, Pisa ( 
Famine "), 203 



of, Piazza de' 
■'The Tower of 



[292] 



INDEX 



Yacca (the physician), 154 

Vado, Tower of, 29, 32 

Velino Kiver, Falls of (Terni), 68, 
70 

Venice : in "Lines "Written Among 
the Euganean Hills," 19-23; in 
"Julian and Maddalo," 36, 38; 
letter from, 59; prose descrip- 
tion, 62; see illustration facing 
20 

Venus Anadyomene, Uffizi Gallery, 
Florence, 285 ; see illustration 
facing 278 

Vesuvius, 75, 78, 192; in "Ode 
to Naples," 195; see illustrations 
facing 192, 200 



Via Flaminia, 67 

Viareggio, 262, 263; see illustrations 

facing 266, 270 
Villa di Cicerone, Mola di Gaeta, 91 
Villa Mecocci, on Via del Fagiano, 

Leghorn, 126 
Villa Pliniana, Este, 7 



Williams, Captain and Mrs. Ed- 
ward, 153, 154, 247, 259-262; 
278 ; Captain Williams as 
"Melchior" in "The Boat on 
the Serchio," 250 et scq. 



[293] 



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